Robin's First Trick or Treat Outing
by BrotherBat
Summary: Damian doesn't understand trick or treating and doesn't want to, but Dick and Jon are determined to get him involved in the fun whether he likes it or not!
1. Chapter 1

**Dick's POV**

"There is no way that I am ever going trick or treating with you, Grayson."

"You said the same thing about going to meet Santa at Christmas, but you enjoyed that!" I point out.

"-tt- That was different," he replies, looking away from me.

Well, this isn't the reaction I was hoping for. I figured he'd be more receptive to the idea if I asked after a night of patrolling with Bruce. I don't get to join them often, so he seemed excited about that, but clearly not so much about trick or treating. Still, I came all the way from Bludhaven for this, I'm not giving up yet.

"Come on, Dami," I beg, "somehow I've let you miss out on properly celebrating Halloween for the last three years, I'm not letting that happen again."

"It's not up to you," he says, crossing his arms.

"At least tell me why don't you want to go!"

"Why would I?" he replies, "I have no desire for sugary junk food."

"The candy isn't the only important part of it, Damian."

"I don't see what else about it would matter. It's all a means to an end for children who crave sugar. I'm not a child and I don't crave sugar."

That explains why he's so hesitant, he has no idea what trick or treating is all about! But he's too stubborn to understand if I try and explain it to him. He has to experience it, then he'll see. If I can just convince him...

"I'll put aside the fact that I know you secretly love candy-"

"-tt-" he interrupts, scowling at me.

"Because more importantly, trick or treating is about so much more than that. And just because kids enjoy doing it, doesn't mean you can't too. If you'd let me take you, then you'd see that for yourself!"

"You really expect me to enjoy going around in some ridiculous outfit asking strangers for treats, all while being supervised by you and a bunch of other adults?" he asks, sounding genuinely astounded that I would suggest such a thing.

"They're not there to supervise-"

"Yes they are, that's what you would be there to do. I know how these things go and I get enough of that from Father on patrol."

"Damian-"

"No, I do not intend to waste any more time listening to your nonsen- oof!" he says, almost bumping into Alfred as he turns around.

"Excuse me, Master Damian. But I do believe it's time for you to be getting changed out of that uniform and into your pyjamas. Your father did not send you home early so you could bicker with Master Dick. It is a school night remember, you need plenty of sleep before we travel to Metropolis tomorrow morning."

"Robin has no bedtime," he growls.

"Indeed, Damian Wayne on the other hand."

Damian huffs in response before walking past Alfred to the changing room.

"Stupid Pennyworth, stupid Father, stupid Kent, stupid headquarters..." I hear him grumble.

I collapse into the Batcomputer's chair in defeat.

"I genuinely thought I could convince him this time, Alfred. I just wanted to show him how great trick or treating can be, but if he thinks I'm going to be there to supervise him and make sure he behaves, then there's no way he'll go with me."

"You may be right about that, sir. I doubt Master Damian would go with an adult to watch over him. However, if there was someone who wasn't an adult that could show him the ropes, then perhaps..."

Wait a minute, that's genius!

I leap out of the chair.

"Alfred, you never cease to amaze me!" I say, grabbing him by his shoulders in excitement, "do you think you could convince everyone to agree to it?"

"With a couple of phone calls, anything is possible."

**Damian's POV**  
**The Next Day  
West-Reeve School, Metropolis**

"What do you mean you've never been trick or treating?" Kent exclaims.

"What do you think I mean, Super Dweeb," I reply.

"But every kid goes trick or treating! It's all anyone's been talking about all day!"

"I've noticed, which just reminds me how ridiculous it is that I'm forced to go to this establishment with all of these children."

"Just because you're a teenager, doesn't mean you shouldn't have to go to school," he says.

"Shut up and eat your lunch."

As we both take bites of our food, I turn a page of the case file that I've disguised as a book. If I have to be here every day, I may as well be productive.

"You know, you might learn to like people here if you spent any time talking to them, and maybe tried to be nice and didn't tell them to shut up," he suggests.

"I'm spending time having lunch with you right now, aren't I?"

"That doesn't count, we're already friends. Plus, I'm the only person that'll sit next you, I'd feel bad if I left you to eat lunch on your own."

"-tt- I wish you would-"

"Hey Jon, are you going trick or treating tomorrow?" interrupts one of Kent's friends.

"Of course I am, Georgia, who isn't!" he replies, turning away from her to smirk at me for a moment.

I roll my eyes in return.

"Well some of the people from our class are going together, we wanted to know if you'd join us?"

"Oh sorry, I can't," he says apologetically, "I always go with my dad. Maybe we'll bump into each other though!"

"That's cool."

I raise an eyebrow as she turns to me.

"Any chance you'd like to-"

"No," I cut her off sharply.

"Figured," she says, now rolling her eyes.

I scowl at her as she turns back to Kent.

"See you for some kickball later?"

"You bet!" he replies as she makes her way back to her table.

Kent takes another bite of his food.

"That just now," he says with his mouth full, "is exactly what I was talking about with the whole trying to be nice thing."

"Oh really? I never would have guessed," I reply sarcastically.

He smiles.

"It's okay, you'll get there," he says somewhat sarcastically himself, although knowing him, he probably believes that.

I turn another page of the case file, hoping that's the end of this pointless conver-

"I can't even imagine being your age without ever going trick or treating," Kent says, interrupting my thoughts.

"And I can't imagine thinking something so stupid is that important," I reply.

Kent frowns at me.

"How can you call it stupid if you've never tried it? Do you even know anything about it?" he asks, sounding hurt.

"-tt- Of course I know about trick or treating."

"Oh yeah? Tell me what you know," he demands, crossing his arms.

"Children dress up and ask strangers for candy, it's pretty simple."

"Nuh uh, not just children," he shakes his head, "teenagers and adults wear costumes too. My dad and I always go in matching ones."

"Ah yes, I'd almost forgotten. The adults supervise the children to make sure they don't follow through on their threats of tricking people who don't give them treats."

I figured that was obviou-

"Wrong!" Kent replies, now with a grin on his face.

"Excuse me?" I sneer.

"The adults aren't there to supervise, if they were, why would they need to wear costumes? Besides, you're not supposed to actually trick people, that'd be mean."

"Clearly you're too naive to realize this, Kent, but the adults only wear the costumes to please the children. And what is the point of threatening to trick people if you're not going to follow through? That shows weakness."

"Wrong again!" he says.

"How?" I ask.

Somehow I think I may actually be curious about the answer.

"The adults wear costumes so they can be something cool! Just like the kids!" he replies, his grin now replaced with a beaming smile.

That makes no sense. Kent is just being foolish, surely!

"Costumes aren't cool!"

"What do you mean?" he says, leaning in closer to whisper, "we wear them every night, of course they're cool!"

"-tt-I've told you before, those are not costumes, they're uniforms. They serve a purpose."

"Yeah, but they're cool," he moves back, "and so are Halloween costumes. And adults enjoy wearing them just as much as kids."

"Wouldn't the adults just lie about enjoying it to keep the kids happy?"

"Nope, wrong again. My dad told me so himself, he loves dressing up for Halloween, and you know my dad, he doesn't lie to me."

As much as I hate to admit it.

"You're probably right about that, your father is many things, but he's not a liar. That still doesn't explain why you say trick or treat if you're unwilling to actually trick anyone."

"It's just what people say," he shrugs, "it's fun."

Hmm, this trick or treating thing is slightly more complicated than I thought. Perhaps some adults aren't there to supervise, but surely some of them are, and Grayson definitely would be. So that still doesn't make me curious to try it. Plus, nothing I've been told makes it sound any more important or like a good use of my time. But I can kind of see more clearly why children like Kent would enjoy it.

"I thought you were starting to get it... but you still don't, do you?" he asks, tilting his head.

I wasn't meant to give away the fact that I was thinking this over! Stupid Kent is trying to read my face like Grayson does!

"What is there to get?" I reply, "I may have got some of the details wrong, but I still don't see what makes trick or treating so important."

"It's important for so many reasons! Costumes are cool and everyone likes wearing them! Candy is great, and you can't pretend you don't like it because I've seen you eat it before," he says, pointing a finger at me.

HIM TOO? Is my fondness for candy the worst kept secret in the world or something?

"But the most important thing about trick or treating, is that no one does it alone. I always go with my dad, Georgia's going with our friends, everyone needs someone to go trick or treating with. That's what really makes it special."

I... hadn't considered that before. That the supposed importance could lie in the sharing of the experience.

I continue to think about what Kent said as I sit through my afternoon classes, but the puzzle still doesn't quite come together. I can see how sharing experiences can make them more important, after all, it was mine and Grayson's time together as a dynamic duo that allowed me to trust him as much as I do. But that experience involved saving lives and putting criminals behind bars, things that are inherently important already. It had nothing to do with the fact that we were both wearing uniforms, at least, I don't think it did. So what makes sharing candy and wearing costumes together so special?

As I stand at the helicopter pad, waiting for Pennyworth to arrive in the chopper to take me home, I realize that I've spent the entire afternoon thinking about the importance of trick or treating, and feel no closer to understanding it.

"Hey Damian! How was your afternoon?"

I turn around to see Kent approaching me.

"Dull as usual," I can't let him know I wasted all that time thinking about what he said to me, "you don't have to see me off every day, we'll see each other on Monday."

"I know, but you get picked up in a helicopter! No way I'm missing that."

"You do remember that you can fly, right?"

"Yeah, but still, a helicopter!"

FWIP! FWIP! FWIP! FWIP! FWIP!

Speaking of which... Pennyworth lands the chopper and turns off the propellers.

"You could have kept it going, Pennyworth. I'm not stupid enough to get caught in the blades," I say, walking towards the vehicle.

"I know, young sir, but I have good reason. I believe you have something to say to Master Jonathan, and it would be rather difficult to do so with all the background noise."

Oh, this is one of those days.

I look back at Kent, who is staring at the helicopter in amazement, even though this must be the 30th time he's seen it. Then I turn back to Pennyworth.

"Must I?" I ask.

"You may do as you wish, I will only remind you that it is a requirement in the agreement with your father that allows you and Master Jonathan to keep your little headquarters."

"Grr! If Father keeps adding conditions then it won't be worth keeping the damn HQ," I grumble.

"You remember I have super hearing, right?" Kent points out.

I sigh, turn around and walk back towards him.

I can't believe I'm going to say this.

"Jon, since you are my best friend, I would delighted if you would join me for a sleepover at the manor tonight. Would you like to come?" I ask unenthusiastically, following the exact wording I was given by Father and Grayson. They're lucky that I find that HQ so useful.

"Of course!" he says gleefully, immediately running towards the chopper, "I'll have to call and ask my parents though."

"No need, Master Jonathan," Pennyworth replies, "they are already aware that you will be spending the night with us."

"Awesome!" he says as he climbs in.

"Yes, awesome," I reply sarcastically as I follow him.

"Please ensure your seatbelts are fastened, young sirs," Pennyworth says as he closes the doors.

I turn to see Kent with his seatbelt already on and his hands pressed against the window as he stares outside, waiting in anticipation of the chopper ascending into the air. His joy at flying inside a vehicle when he can do so himself is absurd to the point of being insufferable, I should have taken the seat at the front and sat next to Pennyworth instead.

As we make our way into the air, I distract myself from Kent's astonishment by asking Pennyworth a question.

"Pennyworth, do you enjoy wearing costumes?"

"Well Master Damian, before working for your father, I was an actor in the theatre. Which required rather a lot of dressing up for the different roles. So I suppose I do, yes."

I check to make sure that Kent is still too busy looking out the window to be paying attention to our conversation, hoping not to give away my curiosity about Halloween, before I ask my next question.

"I uh- overheard the other pupils at school today mentioning that they believe adults think wearing costumes is 'cool'. I wondered if that's true. Do you think that costumes are 'cool'?"

"Were they discussing Halloween, young sir?"

"I believe so, yes."

"In which case, I can elaborate. I think what they mean by wearing costumes being 'cool', is the same for people of all ages. It's not the act of wearing a costume that is cool, but the opportunity to be someone or something else through that costume which is, as you said, cool. Whether that be a Batman costume or Dracula, it is a vehicle through which they can escape and take a break from being themselves. Which I believe can do everyone a little bit of good on occasion."

"Yeah, what he said," Kent adds, turning to me with a smile, "that's what I meant."

When did he start listening in?

"Yes, well, he explained it far more eloquently than your nonsense earlier. Costumes are cool, pff! I should have expected that rubbish coming from you," I say, looking out the window to avoid his gaze.

"But I got you interested, right?" he replies cheerfully.

Damn, I was too obvious!

"Of course not! Don't be ridiculous!"

I swear!

"I wonder what you're going to go trick or treating dressed as," he ponders, putting his hands behind his head.

"I'm not going trick or treating," I growl.

"Whatever you say, grumpy. Hey, I know, you can go as one of the seven dwarves! Seeing as you're short and- mmph!"

I swiftly cover his mouth with my hand before he can continue.

"Behave back there, or I may have to inform both of your parents of your actions," Pennyworth warns.

"Fine," I say, releasing Kent's mouth from my grasp.

"Jerk," he mutters.

"If you shut up for the rest of this journey, we can play Monk-E-Monsters when we get to the manor," I offer.

Kent complies and mimes zipping his mouth with a smile.

As we continue on silently, I think about the pieces of the puzzle that is what makes Halloween supposedly important starting to come together. I can understand how it would be entertaining for someone to be Batman for a day, but being Batman is about a lot more than wearing a costume. Is wearing the outfit really enough for people to temporarily inhabit a different life? I am still unconvinced by that, and have little interestin trying myself. But perhaps that is enough for people to find the escape that they need. I however need no escape, why would I take a break from being Robin? Unless of course I could be Batman... but even if I did become Batman for a day, I wouldn't then waste that day trick or treating!

Once we land at the manor, Alfred walks ahead of us towards the front door.

"Can I speak now?" Kent asks.

"I suppose this is the end of the journey."

"Cool, so what monkey are you gonna play? I came up with a strategy for-"

"There should be some snacks waiting in the kitchen for you," Pennyworth interrupts as he opens the door.

"Thanks, Alfred," Kent replies, "anyway, as I was- DAD?"

You've got to be kidding me. As we turn towards the kitchen, we see both of our fathers standing there, waiting for us. I have a bad feeling about this.

"Hey Jon, how was school?" Clark says, ruffling his son's hair.

Great, now I'm dealing with two insufferably joyful Kents.

"Father, what is the meaning of this?" I ask.

"Yeah, why are you here, Dad?" Kent adds.

"Well we thought we should tell you this together," Clark says.

"Face to face," Father follows.

"We've talked it over, and decided it would be a good idea for you two to go trick or treating together for Halloween this year," Clark explains.

"Just you two, no adults," Father adds.

"WHAT? NO!" Kent and I reply in unison.

Wait? We're in agreement? That can't be good...


	2. Chapter 2

**Jon's POV**

"I don't want to go trick or treating with him!" Damian and I say in unison, pointing at each other.

Why do we keep agreeing like that? It's weird!

"Father, a word?" Damian groans.

"Yeah Dad, can we talk about this?"

Our dads look at each other and sigh.

Mine puts his arm around my shoulder and takes me into the kitchen, while Damian's directs him to the hallway.

"Please don't make me do this," I beg, turning around to face him.

"I thought you'd be excited to go trick or treating with your best friend."

"Excited? Why would I be? Halloween is our thing! How would you feel if I asked you to go trick or treating with Damian's dad!" I reply.

He laughs for a moment.

"Well I'd be surprised-" he cuts himself off as he notices me pouting at him.

Why isn't he listening to me? Doesn't he care about spending Halloween with me?

"Okay, sorry," he says, putting a more serious face on, "I know it's going to be different, Jon. But you love trick or treating-"

"I do love trick or treating, but I love trick or treating with you, not Damian! I've always gone with you... ever since I was little..." I stop as I feel my lip start to quiver.

I look down at the floor, trying to compose myself.

Dad kneels down in front of me and places his hands on my shoulders.

"It's okay, go on," he says.

As tears start to come to my eyes, I try wiping them away with my sleeve, before looking back up at him.

"We would always go in matching costumes and-" I sniffle, "and Mom would hand out the candy while we were gone, and then we'd join in when we got back and- and then we'd eat whatever candy was left and... it won't be the same!"

"I know, I know. I understand why you're upset, Jon, I'm sad about it too. I love trick or treating with you-"

"Then why are you making me do this?" I ask, tears running down my cheeks, unable to be held back.

"Because Damian's your friend, and he's never been trick or treating before, so he needs a pro to teach him how it's done. And I can't think of anyone better for the job than you," he says proudly.

"But I don't want to," I shake my head, "I want to go with you."

"Remind me, why do we help people, Son?" he asks with a smile.

I sigh.

"Because it's what good people do, they get involved," I reply dejectedly.

"Right, and Damian needs your help. Besides, you'll have a great time, you need to trust me on this one."

"But what if I don't have a great time?" I whine.

"You will!" he insists, before opening his arms and inviting me in for a hug.

I embrace him, wrapping my arms around his neck and shutting my eyes.

"Pwomise?" I ask, my voice muffled by his shirt as I snuggle my face into it, trying desperately to wipe away my tears.

"Of course," he chuckles.

"I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, Son."

**Damian's POV**

"I hate you."

"Calm down, Damian."

"No! Whose idea was this? Yours? Grayson's?" I interrogate, poking his chest.

"Dick and Alfred came to me-"

"PENNYWORTH WAS INVOLVED?"

I look around the hallway, hoping that he's still lingering around so that I can scowl at him.

Father puts a hand on my shoulder.

"We all agreed it was a good idea, Damian. You've been working hard lately, with school, the Titans, your patrols with Jon and all of that on top of the work we do together, it's a lot, you need a break."

"I can handle it!" I say, brushing his hand off.

"Even so, one night of not being Robin, taking some time out and having fun with your friend-"

"Fun? Friend?" I interrupt, "-tt- you're starting to sound like Grayson. If you're going to force me to take a break, you should at least let me choose what I do with it, rather than deciding what's 'fun' for me."

"I'm not forcing you to do anything," he replies.

"OH REALLY? That would be a first! You force me to go to school all the way in Metropolis every day, you force me to have stupid sleepovers, you force me to waste my time during all the other ridiculous holidays and you always threaten to take away my headquarters and Robin privileges if I refuse. But trick or treating is where you draw the line, is it?"

Father pauses for a moment, clearly struggling to think of a suitable retort. I'm sure whatever he comes up with will be complete nonsense.

"You're right, I've been treating you unfairly."

See? That makes- wait, what?

"Excuse me?" I reply, raising an eyebrow.

"You're right. I've been threatening you with punishment too often, it shows a lack of trust. I should have faith in you to do the right thing without me forcing you to. I'm sorry," he explains.

What is happening?

I take a step back in shock, avoiding looking at him as I try to compose myself.

He can't truly mean that, can he? What kind of game is he playing here?

"Yes, well, of course I'm right," I say suspiciously, "I suppose I'm... glad, that you finally saw sense."

"Now when it comes to school, you had plenty of opportunities to take homeschooling with Alfred seriously and refused to, so I will still revoke your Robin privileges if you have any unauthorised absences. However, if you don't want to have a sleepover tonight, then I won't force you. You can walk into the kitchen right now and tell Jon you've changed your mind and that you'd like him to leave, his dad is here after all, so he can take him home. If you want, that is."

He's actually serious, isn't he? I don't have to have a stupid sleepover, if I don't want to... which obviously I don't, I'm not childish enough to think that would be enjoyable... that's what I'll do then, I'll call it off, right now. Kent won't mind, he can fly home with his father in minutes... although, we could do something useful while he's here, perhaps some training... and Monk-E-Monsters.

"Well, I- uh, don't think that is necessary," I say hesitantly, "after all, we could use the time for some strategic training, for future missions."

"If that's what you want."

"It is."

I think? What is going on? Did I just choose to have a sleepover with Jon?

"And in the same way, I won't force you to go trick or treating either."

"You won't?" I ask excitedly.

"I'll leave the choice up to you, on the condition that if you don't want to go, you have to be the one to tell Jon, since it's your decision."

What kind of condition is that? Kent doesn't even want to go trick or treating with me!

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Really? No catch? I can just cancel this whole thing? I can't believe this.

"Father, I am genuinely speechless. You are being surprisingly reasonable for once, thank you."

"I'm sure you'll make the right decision. Anyway, how about we join the other two in the kitchen and have some of those snacks Alfred made for us."

"That sounds perfect," I say with a satisfied grin, following him towards the kitchen.

This trick or treating thing was much simpler to get out of than I thought it would be. Now all I have to do is give Kent the good news.

Upon entering the kitchen, I immediately grab one of Pennyworth's snacks from the table, taking a bite in celebration. Mmm the sweet taste of victory.

I turn to Kent and notice he doesn't have that usual smile of his. Thankfully, I know just how to fix that. But before I can, he approaches me, offering his hand.

"I know we didn't want to go trick or treating together, but since we have to, let's agree to make it as fun as possible," he says, smiling now.

As I take a closer look at his face, I see that his smile is not as relaxed as normal, it seems forced, and that his eyes are a little red. Has he been crying? Over something as stupid as this? Well now I really can't wait to tell him.

"No need to be so ridiculous, Kent," I reply, "I've decided that I won't be going trick or treating after all, so you can have fun without me. Here, have a celebratory snack."

I place one of Pennyworth's snacks in his hand instead of shaking it.

Kent turns and looks at his father, who doesn't react, and then back to me, even the forced smile leaving his face now.

"I'm not hungry," he mumbles, placing the food back onto the table and walking away.

Wait, he just said he didn't want to go with me, how is this not good news for him? I thought he'd be over the moon. I don't understand.

Clark approaches me now.

"Damian, you need to think carefully about this. Trick or treating is very important to Jon, and it should be to you too," he says.

"Why? Why does everyone keep saying it's so important? Because people have fun? Because they get to be someone other than themselves? Because they do it together? Because they like sugar? Which reason is it? Because I'm not seeing how any of those make trick or treating important," I reply.

"It's all of those reasons, and more. But there's one reason in particular that I hope you'll understand."

"Which is?" I ask.

"Tradition."

"Tradition? You mean a set of meaningless expected behaviours decided by our culture or society, probably based on some old historical event with no modern relevance, is what makes trick or treating important? I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't understand that at all."

"There's more than one kind of tradition, Damian. Some are personal, kept only between people who are close to each other, who care about each other. Sometimes they are passed down, from generation to generation, from father to son..."

"What are you trying to say?" I ask.

He pauses for a second and sighs. Then he kneels down in front of me and places his finger under my chin, making sure that I'm looking him in the eye.

"What I'm trying to say is, some traditions are kept just between two people that care about each other very much, they might be based on a tradition that many people follow, but they have their own unique little details. Those details may seem silly to others, but to the people that follow them they might be filled with so many cherished memories, that they are immensely important. If you share a tradition like that, it can become part of who you are, it can be part of the foundation of your relationship with someone. It can be so important, that the thought of losing that tradition can be devastating."

He gently turns my head with his finger, motioning me to look past him and towards Jon. I'd lost focus of him during the conversation, but now I see him looking down at his shoes as he leans against the counter. I hear him sniffle, and feel a pang of guilt as I realize he must be crying again. But that guilt is quickly replaced with anger as I see what Clark has been talking about, and come to the obvious conclusion that I'm not to blame for this, someone else is.

I look back at Clark and begin to scowl at him.

"If a tradition like that is so important, why would you ever attempt to break it?" I growl.

He smiles back at me, but with sadness in his eyes.

"Because there comes a time when old traditions, as loved and cherished as they are, can be replaced by even better new ones. And even though it might be hard at first to no longer be a part of something that was so important, with the memories of it still fresh, sometimes it is a sacrifice worth making for the people that we care about. But it's much easier to make that sacrifice, if we can be sure that the people responsible for the new tradition will care for it and cherish it, in the same way that the old one was, so that even happier memories can be made. Do you understand what I'm saying, Damian?" he asks.

Sadly.

"I do," I nod.

As my anger leaves, I realize now why Jon is so upset. Spending Halloween with his father, doing the activities that they always did, it was special to him. I thought rejecting going trick or treating with him would mean that he could enjoy it without me, but he knew as I now do that his father had no intention of returning things to how they were. He is convinced that Kent going with me will somehow be better for us both. And while I fail to see that myself, I do at least trust that Clark understands his own son, and therefore... I can't believe I'm about to do this.

I walk over to Kent who is still looking down, and hold my hand out, obstructing his view of his shoes.

"I disagree with you about having as much fun as possible, that sounds lame. Instead, if we're going to do this, let's be the most awesome trick or treaters ever," I say.

He rubs his eyes on his sleeve, as if I hadn't already noticed that he's been crying.

I snicker in response as he looks up at me, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"What do you say, Jon? Do you want to go trick or treating with- oof!"

I'm interrupted as he lunges forward, wrapping his arms around me.

"Thank you so much! If you're actually trying, I bet we really can have a great time!" he says, squeezing me even tighter into his hug.

I leave my arms at my side, refusing to return his embrace.

I doubt I'll have a great time, but I couldn't stand him looking as pathetic as he did for much longer. Besides, it's only one night, I'm sure I've endured worse with Grayson.

Still, I really wish he would let go now...

"Kent, since your spirits appear to be lifted, perhaps you've changed your mind about having a snack?"

"Ah! You're right!" he says, finally releasing me from his grasp as he grabs one of the snacks from the table, "how could I ever consider not eating Alfred's food!"

I knew that would work.

He shoves the food into his mouth.

"It's soooo good," he says cheerfully with his mouth full.

"I guess I should have some before you eat it all, kiddo," Clark chuckles.

I turn around and spot Father standing in the corner of the room, looking at me with an expression that I'd almost say was pride. That doesn't happen often. Which can only mean one thing.

"You knew I'd make that decision, didn't you?" I ask, trying my best to sound unimpressed.

"I might have," he replies with a smile.

"-tt- I should have known you were playing me with that sudden change of heart."

"I meant every word," he insists, "I trusted you, and you repaid that trust. Soon enough, I might even be able to trust you to take school seriously."

I roll my eyes.

"I'll take it seriously as soon as they start actually teaching me things I don't already know."

"There's plenty more for you to learn, Master Damian," Pennyworth interjects as he enters the kitchen, "there is also plenty more food to be enjoyed if you wish to stay for dinner, Mister Clark?"

I look at the table to see that all of the snacks are gone, and that Kent has food all over his face.

"Don't mind if I do," Clark replies, "at least I won't be competing with someone else for the food on my own plate."

He looks at Kent, who smiles up at him in response.

"Oh man! I just realized!" Kent yells suddenly, "Halloween is tomorrow and we were so busy arguing about whether to go trick or treating that we haven't planned anything for it!"

"Not to worry, Master Jonathan. We have another guest coming over for dinner who I'm sure would be more than happy to help with planning," Pennyworth informs him.

I have a bad feeling about that...

As Pennyworth prepares dinner, we wait in the lounge where Kent describes to me what he and his father would do to prepare for Halloween. I was hoping it would be as simple as pick a costume and ask for candy, but I begin to accept that I have seemingly agreed to do a lot more than that.

"What do you mean we need something special to hold the candy in, wouldn't a regular bag suffice?" I ask.

Kent opens his mouth to reply, but we hear another voice from the doorway.

"Of course not, Dami. Where would be the fun in that?"

"Grayson?" I reply.

"Yup," he grins, stepping into the room, "Alfred invited me for dinner. And to help with everything else of course."

I knew I had a bad feeling about that extra guest.

"Perfect timing, Master Dick," Pennyworth says, "dinner is served."

We all take our seats at the dining table, Jon sits next to me, Grayson sits next to him and our fathers sit together with Pennyworth opposite us.

Once Pennyworth presents us with our food, Grayson turns to Kent.

"So Jon, do you have any ideas for costumes?" he asks.

"Hmm, I'm not sure," he replies thoughtfully, "I want to go as something fun and cool, but most importantly, Damian and I need to go in matching ones, so we need a combination he'll like."

Good luck with that.

"Why exactly do we need to go in matching costumes again?" I interject.

"Because obviously it's way cooler to go as two people that fit together! That's half of the fun of going with someone, otherwise people will wonder why, I don't know, Dracula is hanging out with Superman!"

"Yeah, Dami, obviously," Grayson adds, clearly getting far too much enjoyment out of this.

"Why don't I just go as Robin and you go as Superboy then?"

"But I can be Superboy any day, why would I do that when I can be something totally different for a change?"

"Okay, okay, I have an idea," Grayson says.

"What is it?" Jon asks.

"Jon, do you trust me?" he replies.

"Sure."

"Damian, do you trust me?"

"No."

"Dami..." he says disappointedly.

"Fiiine," I groan.

"Perfect. Alfred, I'm going to need your help."

"Wait, aren't you going to tell us what your idea is?" I ask as they stand up.

"In a minute," he replies.

He cups his hands around one of Pennyworth's ears to whisper to him. Jon turns his head towards them, which Grayson must notice as he stops and pulls away.

"Almost forgot you have super hearing for a second there," he points at Kent, who grins sheepishly in response.

They leave the room, presumably to discuss whatever his idea is. I don't see why he has to be so secretive about some silly costumes, especially since we're the ones that have to wear them.

After waiting for a while, I notice Kent swinging his legs impatiently under the table.

"You do realize his idea is going to be stupid, right?" I inform him.

"What do you mean? He's your brother, I bet he knows exactly what costume you'd like," he replies innocently.

"It's Grayson, all of his ideas are stupid."

"Doesn't mean you don't like them."

"Shut up."

At that moment, Grayson finally returns, confidently striding into the room with a grin that he clearly can't contain.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

"Yeah!"

"Just hurry up," I reply.

"Behold!" he says, gesturing dramatically towards the door as Alfred walks in, holding two cardboard boxes in his arms, each with a bow on top.

"Presents for Halloween?" Kent yells excitedly.

"Now, we must insist that you open these together. Here is yours, Master Jonathan," Pennyworth says, handing Kent his box.

He stares at it with wide eyes.

"What do we say, Jon?" Clark reminds him.

"Oh, thanks Alfred!" he says.

"You're very welcome, young sir. And here is yours, Master Damian."

"-tt-"

"Damian..." Father chastises.

"Thank you, Pennyworth," I grumble.

"Okay, you can open them now," Grayson says.

I lift the lid of the box and- No!

"Wow!" Kent exclaims

There is no way-

"This is so cool!" he adds.

I refuse-

"That's perfect," Clark says.

I can't-

"Agreed," Father replies.

Kent holds his newly gifted costume out in front of him.

I do the same in dismay.

"I GET TO BE ROBIN!" he proclaims.

And I have to be Superboy...


	3. Chapter 3

**Damian's POV**

"This is a joke, right?"

"WOW! I EVEN GET MY OWN UTILITY BELT!" Kent yells joyfully.

"Sorry Dami, I think someone's mind is made up," Grayson says, turning his head to Kent.

I do the same, watching as he inspects his Robin costume contently. I can see why he's happy with this, being Robin is cool. He wishes being Superboy was as cool as being Robin, I have to wear a dumb Superman shirt and some ripped jeans, meanwhile he gets a hand crafted costume with protective layers, a mask and even a utility belt... with all of its contents includ- wait a minute!

"YOU GAVE KENT MY ACTUAL COSTUME! WITH MY REAL UTILITY BELT! WITHOUT MY PERMISSION?" I yell, standing up from my chair.

"Well, this was kind of short notice," Grayson shrugs sheepishly.

"Wait, I thought you said it was a uniform, not a costume," Kent says, smirking at me as he begins to lift something out of my utility belt.

"It is a uniform! I just uh- misspoke, since for you it is a costume and- my point was- anyway- wou- WOULD YOU PUT THAT THING DOWN!"

"Why?" he pauses.

"Because unless you want to fill the room with smoke, you should put that smoke bomb back inside my belt."

"Ooooh, that's what this is," he says, "man, you have some cool stuff in her-AH!"

My eyes go wide.

I watch as the bomb slips out of Kent's hand and begins falling to the flo-

"Got it," Clark says, holding the bomb in his hand and suddenly kneeling in-between us.

"I would have caught it if you gave me a chance, Dad."

"I know you would have, kiddo," he replies, ruffling Kent's hair, "but I couldn't take any chances when there was a risk of ruining such a nice dining room."

"I must say, I am very grateful for you preventing such an incident, Mister Clark," Pennyworth interjects.

I turn to Father.

"Do you really think it's safe to let him run around with my utility belt after what just happened?" I ask, completely dumbfounded.

"Jon's right, Son, he would have caught it."

"Unbelievable."

"Now that brief moment of excitement is out of the way," Pennyworth says, "why don't I fetch everyone some dessert?"

"Yes please!" Kent replies.

"That sounds wonderful," Clark says.

I sigh.

"Will there be ice cream?" I ask hesitantly.

"Of course," Pennyworth replies.

"Very well."

I sit back in my chair.

If my outrage at Kent being given my actual uniform is going to be brushed aside, I may as well get some ice cream out of it.

After Pennyworth presents us with our food, I attempt to hide my enjoyment as I eat my dessert. In reality, it tastes so good, I could almost forget all of my Halloween troubles.

"I just had an idea!" Kent declares before shoving more ice cream in his mouth.

Almost.

"If we're going as Superboy and Robin, we need something fitting to put the candy in, so maybe we should have buckets with our logos on them."

"And where exactly are we supposed to get those?" I ask, "do they sell things like that? If so, I suppose Pennyworth could-"

"Why would we buy some? It'd be way more fun to make them ourselves!" he interrupts.

"Make them? Really?"

"Obviously, then we'd just need regular buckets to paint on-"

"We're going to paint on some buckets? What a wonderful arts and crafts project!" I reply sarcastically, "what are you going to suggest next? Perhaps we should paint with our fingers instead of brushes, since that would be more 'fun' obviously!"

"I thought you said you wanted us to be awesome trick or treaters," he replies, glaring at me, "we can't be awesome if we don't have something great to put our candy in!"

"You're right, but we're not going to have something great if you walk around with a poorly painted letter R on the side of a bucket!"

"Boys, calm down," Father chastises.

"I don't see what the problem is Dami, I thought you loved painting," Grayson says.

"I paint on a canvass, painting on buckets is childish," I reply dismissively, crossing my arms.

"If the bucket is the issue, I may have a solution," Pennyworth suggests, "perhaps instead of painting buckets, you could carve pumpkins, it would be a more festive option after all."

"That would certainly be unique," Clark points out.

"Whoa, that's a way better idea! Even you have to agree that pumpkins would be awesome, right?" Kent asks.

"-tt- If we could make them work, I suppose, but I'm sure they would just fall apart eventually. Also, unlike a bucket, pumpkins don't have handles, we'd have to carry them in both our hands all the time, it would cover up our costumes."

"They're not going to break in one night," Grayson assures me.

"And I'm certain I could find some handles for you to attach to them," Pennyworth adds.

"Hm."

Kent turns to me with a smug grin.

"So? What do you say, grumpy?"

"Fine. I guess that does sound acceptable," I reply, turning my head away from him before eating another spoonful of ice cream.

"In that case, I shall have everything ready for you tomorrow," Pennyworth says.

"Cool, so now we have the costumes, the pumpkins, everythi- wait, we haven't decided where we're going," Kent says.

"Where?" Pennyworth asks.

"Yeah, like are we going trick or treating in Gotham, since we're already here and everything? Or are we going in Metropolis? Or maybe we should even go in Hamilton, since I know all the best places to go there."

That's actually a good point, I hadn't thought about where we'd be doing this. Maybe we can even pick a place where no one would know who I am, that would make things a little easier.

"I'm not entirely sure to be honest with you, Master Jonathan. Perhaps someone else has an idea?" he replies, opening the question up to the table.

"Perhaps-" I say before cutting myself off as I notice our fathers looking at each other.

What are they planning?

They pause for a moment, then smile before looking back at us.

"I wouldn't worry about it, boys," Father responds, "we'll take care of it."

That can't be good.

Once we're done with our dessert, Clark stands up from his chair.

"Thank you for the wonderful dinner, Alfred, and everyone for the great company, but I really should get going."

"It was our pleasure," Pennyworth replies.

Clark then walks over to Kent and kisses him on the head.

Kent blushes. I roll my eyes.

"I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you're excited for Halloween again. Good luck tomorrow, I hope you come back with lots of candy, but make sure to not eat it all at once, okay?"

"Okaaaay, Dad."

"I love you," Clark says as he pulls his son in for a hug.

"I love you too."

I notice Grayson enjoying the sappy display and take that as my cue to leave the dining room before he instigates anything similar with me, but Clark grabs my shoulder before I can walk past him.

"And thank you, Damian, for everything. I hope you enjoy trick or treating," he says.

Ugh! I can't stand the sincerity in his eyes.

"-tt- You're welcome," I reply, looking away.

As Pennyworth and Father see Clark out, I take Kent to the lounge.

"I've heard enough about Halloween for one night, let's do what we came here to do, play Monk-E-Monsters," I say, handing him a controller.

"You're on!"

As we play, I realize he has improved significantly since the last time we faced each other. He starts to beat me in several rounds and keep us at a nearly even win/loss record, mostly by using new tactics that I wasn't expecting from him. Perhaps this game really is a good way to improve his strategic thinking, but still, I can't actually lose more games than he does, that would be embarrassing. I consider suggesting that we switch to playing Cheese Viking instead in an effort to avoid that possibility, but then I spot the perfect excuse to stop playing, it's almost 9pm, Kent's bedtime. Once he's in bed, I can finally forget about him for a moment, relax and go out on patrol with-

"Good evening, young sirs, I trust you've not been taking your games too competitively," Pennyworth says from behind us as he enters the room.

"Nah, we're just having fun," Kent replies, briefly turning away from the screen to look at him.

"Of course not, Pennyworth, there would need to be competition for that to happen," I say, taking the opportunity to win the game while he's distracted.

"Hey!" he yells.

"Let that be a lesson, never take your eyes off your enemy until you are certain he's been defeated."

He sticks his tongue out at me.

"Yes, well, I'm afraid that will have to be it for tonight," Pennyworth says, walking in front of the screen, "it's time for bed."

"Yes, I noticed it was Kent's bedtime. Goodniiight, Kent," I taunt, waving at him.

"Can I stay up just a little bit longer? Please?" he begs Pennyworth.

"I don't see why you should," I say.

He glares at me again. Did I teach him to do that?

"At this point, I feel I should clarify that I was referring to both of you," Pennyworth says.

"Excuse me?" I reply in disbelief.

"It's your bedtime too, Master Damian," he explains.

Kent giggles in response to that statement.

"WHAT! And why exactly should I be forced to go to bed so early? This is way earlier than you've ever made me go before! And most importantly, it means I won't get to go on patrol with Father and Grayson! This is outrageous!"

"As you have not had a sleepover before, I will forgive you for suggesting that you would leave Master Jonathan so that you could go out on patrol. But I must inform you that it is proper sleepover etiquette that you both go to bed at the same time."

"Well why isn't Kent going to bed when I usually would then?" I retort.

"Good question!" Kent adds, backing me up now that he has a chance to benefit from us working together.

"Because you have a very long and busy day ahead of you tomorrow, where I'm sure you will be staying up much later than this. So it's important to have a good night's sleep tonight in preparation."

"How about if we stayed up for just one more hour?" Kent asks.

I scowl at him.

What was that? Folding and undermining me already! How am I supposed to negotiate like this?

"I apologize, Master Jonathan, but while that would still be early for Master Damian, it would not be for you. And I promised your parents you would go to bed at a proper time."

Kent sighs.

"Alright then," he says.

"ALRIGHT THEN?" I yell, "you coward, giving up so easily. Grr! Fine, Pennyworth, since Kent has left me no choice, I will go to my bed. But I do not promise to sleep!"

I try to lean into Pennyworth's face to intimidate him, but he's too tall, so I end up leaning closer to his chest instead.

"Very well. Follow me," he replies, undeterred.

We make our way to the second floor of the Manor, Kent looking around the place with interest as he always does, while I drag my feet across the floor in frustration.

I scowl at Pennyworth as we stop outside the door to my bedroom.

"And which guest room will Kent be staying in?" I ask.

Pennyworth pauses for a moment as grabs the door handle.

"It appears you really do have a lot to learn about sleepover etiquette, Master Damian," he says, opening the door to my room, revealing to my dismay, an additional bed inside.

No...

"Does this mean what I think it means?" Kent asks.

"Indeed, Master Jonathan. You shall be sleeping in the same room for tonight."

Kent walks inside, immediately sitting on his temporary bed.

"So comfy," he says.

"I don't recall giving you permission to move my things so that you could place this abomination in my room, Pennyworth," I complain, taking in the sight from the doorway.

"Hey! I heard that!" Kent yells.

"I was talking about the bed," I grind out of gritted teeth.

Although now I'm reconsidering my intentions.

"Rest assured, everything will be put back in its place once Master Jonathan has left," Pennyworth says.

"It better be or I'll-"

"Are these pyjamas for me? They look my size," Kent interrupts, holding a pyjama top against his chest.

"Yes they are, Master Jonathan, feel free to enter the en suite to change into them."

"You really thought of everything, thanks Alfred!" he says as he goes to get changed.

I grab my pyjamas and do the same once he's done. But as I walk out of the en suite, I notice Pennyworth still waiting in the doorway.

"Can I help you?" I moan.

"I shall leave and close the door as soon as you're both in your beds," he replies.

"You've really got to be kidding me this time," I say.

"I'm afraid not."

I turn my head to see Kent already getting comfortable under his bed covers and I roll my eyes.

"I'll get you back for this," I grumble, "I'll get you all back, just watch me."

I sit upright against the headboard of my bed, but Pennyworth doesn't move.

I sigh before placing the covers over my waist.

"That will have to do," he mutters.

I scowl at him and cross my arms.

"Goodnight, young sirs," he says.

"Goodnight," we reply in unison, but with very different tones.

Once Pennyworth switches the main light off and closes the door, I turn to Kent and see his face through the illumination of the lamp between our beds. He stares up at the ceiling, his hands behind his head.

"There's no way I'm going to fall asleep," he says.

"For once, something that we can agree on," I reply.

"Are you too excited to sleep too?"

That's clearly not what I meant.

"No, thankfully I can contain my excitement..."

"There's just so much to look forward to, it's all going to be different, but I bet it's going to be awesome."

"Well you do get to wear the best costume, some would say your costume is even better than Batman's."

Kent snickers in response.

That wasn't meant to be funny.

"I don't know, I think your costume might be the best," he says.

I take a deep breath, choosing to lie down now and rest my head on my pillow.

"I wish," I reply.

"Where do you think our dads are going to let us go?"

"Knowing them, somewhere they can keep a close eye on us, so they can supervise us from a distance."

"Nah, I don't think that's it. I think-" Kent pauses momentarily to yawn, "I think they're going to pick the best place for you to have fun."

"Me? You seriously misunderstand our fathers. They are not concerned with me having fun."

"Yes they are, Dad said so himself. I'll have fun anywhere, but you-" he yawns again, "you'll see."

"Kent, I don't think you understand why I'm doing this. I can make us awesome trick or treaters, and I can try and make trick or treating fun for you, but I can't make it fun for me. It's impossible to do both, our fun does not overlap outside of patrol and Monk-E-Monsters," and I'll choose your fun over mine tomorrow, because of course I just had to go and make a promise to Superman, "so if our fathers are picking a place for anyone's fun, it's yours. But more importantly than all of that, wherever we go, can you promise me that you'll try not to ruin Robin's reputation while you're wearing my uniform?"

There's no reply.

"Kent?"

I lift my head for a second and see that Kent's eyes are closed, and his breathing is steady.

He fell asleep with that stupid grin on his face, didn't he? I rest my head back on my pillow. What happened to all that excitement that was supposedly keeping him awake?

I take a deep breath again. Well, this is going to be one boring night. No doubt that Pennyworth will notice if I leave the room and send me back here when he catches up to me. So I have no choice but to stay put. At least my bed is comfortable, even if I won't actually be sleeping in it for several hours.

I wonder what trick or treating will be like, obviously I'm not going to enjoy it, but maybe it will be a more interesting experience than I'm imagining. I'm sure I'll like the candy though, I have that to look forward to. I just have to wait for it, that's all, ask some strangers for candy, hope that Kent doesn't embarrass my alter ego, then after all that waiting, I'll... I'll...

"Rise and shine."

Huh?

I crack my eyes open before immediately closing them again as the blinding light hits them.

Wait, light? Did I... fall asleep? AT 9PM!

"Come on, Robin, the early bird gets the worm, remember?"

"Are you going to say that every time we have a sleepover?" I groan.

Not that I'll ever make the mistake of having another sleepover.

"Only if you keep being a night owl."

"Will you stop with the bird jokes if I get up?"

"Maybe."

I drag myself into sitting up and open my eyes to see Kent standing at the end of my bed, giving me a beaming smile.

"Today's the day!" he says cheerfully.

I hate morning people.

"Indeed, today's the day..."

"Hey, do you smell that?" he asks, sniffing the air.

"Smell what? I don't smell anything."

"I guess that's cause you don't have super smell," he replies, "follow me!"

He hurries out the door and runs down the hallway before I can even get out of bed.

I shake my head, then slowly make me way down the hall. Once I get to the top of the staircase, I spot Kent below, standing at the entrance of the kitchen and looking inside. I walk down the stairs.

"What are you do-"

"Do you smell it now?" he asks.

I sniff.

"Pancakes?" I say in surprise.

"Uh huh!"

But Pennyworth never makes pancakes, he always insists on healthier options.

"Do feel free to enter the kitchen, young sirs. These pancakes are for you after all."

"They smell delicious!" Kent replies as we walk in to see two whole stacks of them waiting for us on the counter.

They really do.

"Then I hope they taste as good as they smell. Now, please grab a plate and sit down in the dining room."

We follow Pennyworth's orders and watch as he places the stacks and a selection of toppings on the dining table. As I take a closer look at the pancakes, I realise mine are shaped like an S, while Kent's are shaped like bats.

"Wow, how did you get them all to look like that?" Kent asks.

"They're so consistent."

As much I dislike being reminded that I'm going to dress up as Superboy today, I must admit, it is an impressive display.

"A butler never reveals his secrets," Pennyworth replies before he makes his way back to the kitchen to clean up.

Mercifully, Kent is silent for once as we both focus on enjoying our breakfast treat. I doubt Pennyworth will ever do this for me again, and I realize the game he's playing here, he's hoping that giving me all these treats will make me more receptive to whatever nonsense has been planned for today. But I won't fall for it! However, that doesn't mean I won't savour every delicious mouthful.

Once we're done, Pennyworth comes to collect our plates.

"That was amazing!" Kent says, licking some maple syrup off his lips.

"Agreed," I say, leaning back in my chair.

"Thank you, young sirs. I'm glad your breakfast has put you in a good mood, because I have something else to show you."

"What's that?" Kent asks.

"Follow me into the kitchen and you'll see."

We enter the kitchen to find some items covered by a cloth on the floor. Pennyworth removes the cloth in one smooth motion to reveal two pumpkins, some knives and two handles that look just the right size to attach to them.

"I thought your pumpkin carving might take a while, so it may be a good idea to start early. If you need any assistance at all, I am always available."

"Those pumpkins look perfect! Thanks Alfred!"

"As if I would need help for such a simple task," I say, "but I'm sure Kent will inform you when he inevitably does."

"Hey! I've carved loads of pumpkins, I bet you've not even carved one!" he replies.

"I've made sculptures out of marble, I don't think some pumpkins are going to be an issue."

"We'll see. So what sort of pumpkin would Robin walk around with?" he asks, sitting down next to one of them.

"Not one that you're capable of carving."

"I can do it! I just need a good idea... I know, I'll go with your symbol in the middle of a bat symbol, since you love to pretend that you're better than Batman."

"-tt- I do not pretend."

He tries to scowl at me.

"-tt- Of course you're right. I'm the real greatest detective, I'm totally not just a boy who has all of Batman's gadgets and can do flips or anything," he says, doing an awful impersonation of me.

"You're not going to do that while you're wearing my uniform, are you?"

"No promises," he replies, smiling as he begins to work on his pumpkin.

I don't bother asking him what Superboy would have on his pumpkin, it's obvious, an S symbol. I'll have to add something more, that'll be far too simple, even if I am meant to be pretending I'm Superboy.

I start to carve and it turns out that carving a pumpkin is as easy as I thought it would be, and with some time and effort, I have a perfectly proportioned Superboy symbol. After taking a moment to admire the work that I've done so far, I look at Kent's pumpkin and am horrified by what I see.

"Not only have you made a far bigger mess than I have, the R on your pumpkin is upside down," I point out.

"No it's not, see!" Kent replies, holding the pumpkin up to my face.

"Kent, the R may look the right way up if you hold it like that, but the hole is at the bottom of it," I stick my hand inside the hole to prove my point, "it won't hold any candy that way."

"No I- oh... oops, you're right..." he places it back down the right way up, "what am I gonna do?"

He begins to pout and for a moment I regret mentioning it.

"Don't worry about it," I say, but it doesn't seem to comfort him.

"It was such a nice pumpkin..." he mumbles, "but you were right, I did exactly what you said I'd do with the bucket, I messed up the R. I ruined it, and now I'm either going to be walking around with an upside pumpkin, or without anything to hold my candy in."

"It's fine, no one will notice."

"I will! How can we be awesome trick or treaters without our awesome pumpkins?"

As his lip starts to quiver, I remember the promise I made about taking care of these stupid new traditions and realize what I have to do.

"Here," I say, handing him my pumpkin, "you finish that one off."

"But then you have a useless pumpkin," he says, pointing to the upside down one.

"It's not useless, I'm sure Boyzarro or Robzarro would love to go trick or treating with this," I joke.

"That's true," he says, his smile returning for a second as he giggles, "but seriously, what will you put your candy in?"

"The pumpkin I just gave you to finish carving. I'm sure Pennyworth has a spare pumpkin lying around here somewhere, I'll carve something befitting a Robin into that for you to use."

"But what if you don't like what I carve?"

"-tt- if anyone knows how to carve a pumpkin befitting Superboy, it's you Kent. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go find Pennyworth."

"Thanks Damian, I'll make sure it befi- uh, I'll make sure it suits you," he smiles.

"I'm sure you will," I sigh.

Once I get Pennyworth to fetch me a spare pumpkin, I begin to carve an intricate self portrait of Robin swinging past an R being projected into the sky like the bat-signal. Something I won't be embarrassed by Kent using when he's pretending to be me. But while I am capable of carving such a masterpiece, it does take a while. So by the time I'm done, it's getting later into the afternoon and both Father and Grayson have had their brunch.

"So are you guys done?" Grayson asks as he enters the kitchen.

"Just about," I reply, my tongue sticking out above my upper lip as I focus.

"What about you, Jon?"

"Oh I finished my pumpkin, well, I guess I mean the pumpkin that Damian will be using a while ago. I've just been watching him carve. You've been really enjoying it, huh?" he says, almost nudging me before realizing that would affect my carving, "I think you're starting to get into the Halloween spirit, aren't you?"

Wait, Kent's been watching me for a while and I hadn't even noticed? Either he must have been quieter than usual or I really have been getting into this... must be him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I reply, "nonetheless, I am indeed finished."

"Let me see them both," Grayson says.

"Here's the Superboy pumpkin for Damian."

Kent holds the pumpkin up for us both to see. The symbol I added remains untouched, but on the other side he must have been inspired by what I was doing, because there's clearly a poor attempt at a self portrait of Superboy. Having to present that as my own work isn't ideal, but then again I'm going to be dressed as Superboy at the time, so it's not like that can get much worse anyway.

"That looks great, I bet Damian's really happy with it, right?" Grayson encourages me to respond positively. Needlessly in this case, as that was already my intention.

"It's a very fitting pumpkin, Kent."

"Thanks, but look at the one you made! It's incredible!"

I hold my pumpkin up for them both.

"I knew you'd be good at this, Dami," Grayson says.

"Yes, THIS is an acceptable pumpkin for a Robin," I reply dramatically.

As I place it down, I spot Kent holding his palm up towards me.

"Thanks, Damian! We're going to look awesome, just like we wanted!" he says.

"You really are lame sometimes, Kent," I say with a smirk, before lifting my hand to meet his in a high five, "but you're welcome."

"Now that you have got the perfect pumpkins, all you need to do is to attach the handles," Grayson points out.

"Oh right, I'd almost forgotten."

"No need to worry about that," Pennyworth says from the doorway, "Master Wayne requires you downstairs, so I shall deal with the handles."

"Downstairs?" Kent asks.

"The cave," I clarify.

"I guess he's ready," Grayson says.

Ready for what?

We make our way down to the cave, I stay behind Grayson and Kent, hesitant to find out what Father has in store for us. Once we get there, we see Father sitting in front of the Batcomputer, waiting for us.

"So, you wanted to know where you're going trick or treating," he begins.

"Are you gonna tell us?" Kent replies excitedly.

Please say it's not in Gotham, at least that way hopefully no one will recognise us, or more importantly me.

"Well, it took less convincing than I anticipated, but also more preparation. But still, everything is ready, so yes, I can finally tell you."

Wait, convincing? Who did he have to convince? Unless-

"Tonight, you will be trick or treating for each member of the Justice League."

"NO WAY!" Kent yells.

"YEAH, NO WAY!"

THAT'S NOT HAPPENING.

"THAT'S AWESOME!" he adds.

"AWESOME? ARE YOU MAD?" I reply.

It was bad enough that I had to be Superboy in front of strangers! But now I have to do it for the Justice League? This literally could not get any more embarrassing!

"Wait!" I realize, "aren't the Justice League all spread out across the country? How are we going to visit them all?"

"Don't worry about that, Dami," Grayson says, "you've got someone that can fly."

"Yes, but I can't, you moron! What do you expect him to do, carry me?"

"Well, it's not like you haven't done it before."

I stand corrected, this absolutely can get more embarrassing...


	4. Chapter 4

**Damian's POV**

"Come on, Damian! We're gonna be trick or treating for the Justice League, aren't you excited?" Kent asks, nudging my shoulder as I cross my arms.

"No," I grumble.

"Why not?"

"Because you have to carry me while we fly around everywhere."

"Oh, don't worry about that," he says, waving off my concerns, "you're not even that heavy."

That's clearly not what I meant...

"I don't see why we can't fly on Goliath together instead."

"I considered that option," Father replies, "but I calculated it, and even at Goliath's top speed he would be too slow for you to complete your route, whereas Jon can fly considerably faster."

"And we don't exactly want you guys to give away the Justice League's secret identities," Grayson adds, "so as fun as it might be to fly around on a giant red bat, I don't think they would appreciate it if you showed up on their doorstep with him. Whereas two kids in costumes on Halloween, as long as you make sure to land where no one can see you, will blend in just fine."

"Very well," I sigh, "but if you have any more 'surprises' in store for us, I suggest you reveal them now while I'm, for lack of a better word, prepared."

I may as well find out the full extent to which tonight's activities are going to embarrass me ahead of time.

"Just one. You'll need to take this with you."

Father hands me a device.

"What is it?" Kent asks, looking over my shoulder.

"A phone?" I say, unimpressed.

"It's a GPS," Father replies.

Great, even less impressive.

"Why would we need a map? You made me memorize where each member of the Justice League lives years-"

"It's not a map. It will provide you with directions and guidance."

"It's a GPS, without a map? Let's cut to the chase, Father, the real purpose of this device is for you to monitor our location, isn't it?"

"I will have access to your location, yes, but we both know I could get that information without being this obvious if I wanted to."

I eye Father suspiciously.

"I'd trust your dad on this one, Damian. If he says that GPS thing is important, I'm sure it'll come in handy," Kent says.

"Why should we trust him?" I ask.

"Cause he's Batman," he shrugs.

All the more reason not to.

Still, Father is right, I'm sure he could find a more subtle way to track us if he wanted to, so this device must serve some other purpose. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what that is.

"Fine, we'll take it with us."

"Perfect," Grayson says, "now that's out of way, it's time for you to try on your costumes! They're waiting for you in the changing room."

"Oh boy," I reply sarcastically, "how exciting."

We make our way to the changing room, Kent springing along beside me like a supercharged Easter Bunny.

"So you memorized where the Justice League lives?" he asks.

"Haven't you?"

"Naaah, but I learned their birthdays! Dad has them on our calendar."

"Of course he does..."

We enter the changing room to find both of our costumes hanging up. I try my best to ignore what mine looks like while I put it on, but as my foot gets stuck in one of the holes in the stupid jeans, I can't help but let out a tiny growl in frustration.

Why would anyone deliberately choose to have rips in their clothes anyway? It makes no sense! In fact, it negates the very purpose of clothes, to cover one's body up. And that's the only purpose this costume even attempts to serve, it doesn't protect anything, it doesn't look heroic, it seems to be made up of things that could be bought in a store-

"Uh, could you give me a hand, Superboy?" I hear from behind me.

"Don't call me tha- hmm," I lose my train of thought as I turn around to see Kent dressed in my uniform, and come to the surprising conclusion that it actually suits him. Which is just typical, why does he get to look cool in my uniform while I look like an idiot in his!

"How do you get the mask to stay on?" he asks, attempting to balance my domino mask on his face.

Perhaps I spoke too soon, he can manage to look like an idiot no matter what he's wearing.

"You need an adhesive to attach it to your face."

I grab the spirit gum from a nearby shelf and use it to put the mask on for him.

"Hey, I never knew that's how it worked, thanks!"

Kent turns to the nearest mirror and admires his costume, grinning from ear to ear.

"We both look great in these, huh?" he says.

I sigh.

"Let's get this over with," I reply, before leaving the room and walking back into the cave.

Grayson spots us from a distance and I cringe as even from here I can see his eyes light up.

I try to ignore his obnoxious expression as I stop in front of him and Father to await further instructions, but soon Kent is standing beside me and I have no choice but to acknowledge the fate I have condemned myself to.

"What do you think?" he asks them, flinging his cape in the air.

"You both look adorable!" Grayson replies, "I have to take a picture-"

I grab his arm.

"Don't you dare," I growl.

It's bad enough I have to look like this for a night, having this moment immortalised would be mortifying.

"Okay," he replies, holding his hands up, claiming innocence.

I let him go.

"I'll just have to take a mental picture instead," he says, miming using a camera with his hands.

"You're such a dork."

"Those costumes are perfect," Father says.

"Thanks!" Kent replies, "see Damian? Everyone likes them!"

"-tt- They're far from perfect, mine's loose for a start," I complain, shaking my shoulders to demonstrate how it slips around them.

"Actually, now that you mention it, my costume is a little tight," he says, pulling at his collar, "must be becomes I'm taller."

"Shut it."

"All I'm saying is, it would be helpful if you finally had a growth spurt before we do this again next year."

My face goes red.

There's not gonna be a next ye-

"You boys look wonderful in your costumes," Pennyworth interrupts my thoughts as he enters the cave, carrying our pumpkins by their newly attached handles.

He hands Kent his pumpkin.

"Thanks for adding the handle."

"You're very welcome," Pennyworth replies, "And I must say, that pumpkin goes perfectly with your costume, Master Jonathan."

As Pennyworth gives me my pumpkin, I look down at my ensemble and can feel that my face is refusing to return to its normal colour.

Stop blushing, damn it! I know this is the most ridiculous outfit I've ever worn, but it will look even worse if I end up with rosy cheeks like Kent!

I notice Pennyworth's feet on the floor and realize he must still be standing in front of me. I look up to see him staring at me expectantly.

"Thank you for the pumpkin," I say begrudgingly.

"It was my pleasure, Master Damian," he replies.

"You boys should get going now if you want to get through all your stops tonight," Father instructs as he looks at his watch.

"Awesome! Let's go!" Kent says, immediately running up the stairs to the manor in excitement.

I reluctantly follow him.

As we reach the front door of the manor, I reach to open it-

"One second," Grayson says, making me pause, "turn around."

I roll my eyes before following his orders.

"We don't have time for anymore nonsen- ugh!"

He cuts me off as he squeezes Kent and I into a hug.

"You're gonna have such a great time!" he says, tightening his hold even further in excitement.

"You bet!" Kent responds, returning the hug.

"We won't if you make us late," I say as I desperately try to wriggle out of his grasp.

"Okay, okay," he releases us, "sorry, I'm just jealous that I can't go with you. We'll see you later!"

He opens the door and I swiftly make my escape before he can distract us any further.

"Have a good evening, young sirs!" Alfred calls out.

"Make sure to behave, boys," Father adds.

"Thanks! We will, we promise! Right, Damian?" Kent says, walking backwards to wave goodbye to them.

"Sure..."

I pull out the device Father gave us as I hear the door close. I wait a moment for something to pop up on the screen, but it remains blank.

"What does the thing say?" Kent asks.

"Nothing, I told you it would be usele-"

DING!

Now there's something on the screen, except-

"That doesn't make any sense," I say.

"What doesn't?"

"It says we've arrived at our first destination. This thing must be broken."

"Our first desti- GASP! I get it! Your house is our first stop!" Kent exclaims, pointing back to the manor.

"Stop being stupid, Kent. Of course it isn't."

"No, really! Think about it, we're trick or treating for the Justice League, right? Well Batman is part of the Justice League, it makes perfect sense."

"Except for the fact that they just let us leave and closed the door behind us," I point out.

"That's because we have to ring the door bell, it's part of the whole thing. Come on!"

He runs back towards the Manor and I follow him, shaking my head the whole time.

This is so ridiculous, trick or treating my own manor.

"When you think about it," Kent says as I catch up to him at the door, "what better way for you to practice trick or treating than on your own house? This is your first time after all."

Practice? For what? Saying trick or treat? How hard can this be?

"Ready?" he asks.

I answer his question by ringing the door bell.

"Trick or treat!" we say as the door opens to reveal Father and Grayson standing at the entrance with a bucket of candy.

"HAPPY HA-"

"You can do better than that!" Kent says, turning to me as he interrupts Grayson.

"How? I said trick or treat didn't I?"

"Yeah, but you didn't say it with any enthusiasm. And you didn't even hold your pumpkin out in front of you! How do you expect to get candy if you don't show people where to put it?"

"You've got to be kidding me."

"It's okay, Dami. It is your first time," Grayson attempts to soothe me.

"I'd suggest a do-over," Father says.

"Seriously?" I ask.

"You can do this," Grayson replies as he closes the door.

I stand there for a moment in disbelief before Kent nudges me.

Oh, the door bell, right.

I ring it.

"Trick or treat!" we say again as the door opens. This time I make sure to position my pumpkin correctly.

"HAPPY HALL-"

"That was a bit better," Kent interrupts Grayson again, "I mean, at least you held your pumpkin out. But you still didn't sound enthusiastic at all! You're Superboy, remember? Superboy would be really excited to go trick or treating!"

"Well you're meant to be Robin," I retort, "and Robin wouldn't be as enthusiastic as you are."

"Yes he would."

"-tt- I'm pretty sure I know what Robin would do better than you."

"I think Robin would be as excited as I am because he knows he's about to get candy, and he loooves sugar!" he smirks at me.

I scowl at him.

"Even if that were the case," I say, "he would never demean himself like you have been to get it."

"Fine!" Kent replies, glaring back at me now, "Close the door, Dick. We need another do-over."

Grayson does as he's told.

This time, I remember to ring the door bell again.

"Trick or tre-" I begin to say somewhat more enthusiastically, determined to not be forced to repeat this process any more times, but I interrupt myself as I notice Kent doing a silly impression of Batman's voice.

"HAPPY HALLOW-"

"Robin doesn't sound like that!" I yell, choosing to interrupt Grayson myself this time.

"He does when he's trying to sound cool like Batman, he wouldn't find that dem- dem-..."

"Demeaning?"

"Whatever! Which is what you-"

"Stop," I say, covering his mouth with my hand, "just do it like before..."

I give up. It's easier if we both have to sound enthusiastic, no matter how much I hate it.

Kent grins as I move my hand away from his face and close the manor door myself.

I ring the door bell and take a deep breath.

"TRICK OR TREAT!" we both say as enthusiastically as possible.

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" Grayson finally gets to say uninterrupted.

"Those are some wonderful costumes, did you come up with the idea for those yourselves?" Father asks.

"I didn't realize there would be a quiz," I reply, raising an eyebrow.

"It's not a quiz," Kent explains, "we have to talk to people before they give us candy."

"Why?"

"Because then they can ask you about your costume and appreciate the effort you put in."

"You boys must have put in a lot of effort, you look just like Robin and Superboy, did you pick those costumes yourselves?" Father asks again, clearly pretending not to know us or have heard what we just said as part of this childish game.

"No, Nightwing picked them for us!" Kent replies with a smile.

"Oh wow!" Grayson says as he and Father share an obviously fake surprised look at each other, "well whoever Nightwing is, he must have great-"

"Just give us the candy, Grayson."

"I don't think Superboy is usually that grump-"

"Grayson!"

He sighs before dumping an even amount of candy into each of our pumpkins.

"There, you earned it. Happy Halloween!" he says.

"And good luck," Father adds.

"Thanks! Have a nice night," Kent replies as we turn to leave the manor for the second time tonight.

Once the door closes, I look down at the GPS device again and await our next instructions.

"You better not act like that at our other stops," Kent whines.

I ignore him as I stare at the screen, but once again nothing is coming up.

"Damian, I'm serious."

I look up and see his concerned face. That's when I remember the promise I made to Superman again. If this isn't enjoyable for me, I still have to make this as fun as possible for Kent. That, and I can't compromise our future reputation as awesome trick or treaters, no matter how obvious it is that my costume is lame in comparison to his.

"Fine, I won't," I say sincerely, "I just couldn't stand them pretending not to know us, it was patronizing."

Kent smiles as he places a hand on my shoulder.

"Promise?" he asks, already knowing my answer.

"Obviously."

"You're the best."

"Well at least someone recognizes that."

"I didn't mean-"

DING!

"Our next direction," I say.

"What is it?"

I show Kent the screen.

"It says, up."

"Okay then," he replies, grinning as he opens his arms, "are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," I say as I climb into his arms, trying not to look at his face as I do.

"Up it is. Up, up, and awaaaaay!"

He takes us into the air. I continue to watch the screen, waiting until it changes instruction.

DING!

"Straight ahead," I command.

"Aye aye, Captain Superboy," Kent replies.

"Please never say that again..."

"No promises."

As we fly along, I'm thankful to be high enough in the air that no one can see us. Wearing this outfit is embarrassing, but wearing it and being carried around by Kent, that's much worse. As we pass over a residential area, Kent decides to lower us a bit so I can get a look at all the other trick or treaters on the ground. I don't care about looking at them of course, but he insists. Initially all I see is a bunch of idiotic children running around in poorly designed costumes, asking strangers and neighbours for sugar in exchange for the minimal amount of effort they've put in. But as I get bored on our journey, I take my binoculars out of the utility belt around Kent's waist and take a closer look. Now I get the full picture, the people on the ground no longer look like small costumed figures, they're happy people, having a good time. I'm reminded of what Superman said, about traditions and their importance, and the bonds they create between friends and family. It's quite a sight to see that in action.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Kent says.

"-tt-" is my only reply.

I'd never admit to caring about any of this stuff. But that doesn't mean I'll put my binoculars away just yet.

"I knew you'd agree."

Stupid Kent.

After a little while we receive a new direction, 45 degrees to the left and carry on ahead. I finally put my binoculars away as I recognize where we are and where our next stop is.

Once we're close enough to our destination, I advise Kent on where to land so that we remain unseen and we continue on foot to our next stop, a house in the suburbs of Central City.

As we arrive, I prepare myself to do exactly what I did at the manor before ringing the doorbell.

Instantly the door opens to reveal Barry Allen, The Flash.

"TRICK OR TREAT!"

"Oh my god! You guys have to come inside," he says.

"Why?" I ask.

"Come on!" he gestures for us to follow him in.

Kent walks right into the spacious hallway and I follow hesitantly.

I expected questions, but an invitation inside? This is new.

Barry closes the door behind us.

"Wally has to see this," he says.

A second later Wally is standing beside him. Which is impressive considering he lives on the other side of the city.

"Whoa, you got here even faster than I could have!" Kent says in amazement.

"I'm not surprised, we raced on the way from my place," Wally replies with a chuckle, "and I gotta say, it was worth it to see this. Dick must have picked those costumes for you, right?"

"Yeah! How did you know?" Kent asks.

"It's classic Grayson," I reply before Wally can.

"They're great costumes, but yours looks kinda loose," Barry says, pointing at me.

"That's because it's my actual uniform," Kent explains, "and I'm taller so-"

"You know what? No, you're not," I reply, "if I have to be Superboy, then I get to be taller today."

"That's not how that works!"

"Of course it is! I'm Superboy, and everyone knows Superboy is taller than Robin."

Kent scowls at me.

"Oh that's perfect!" Barry says, "Go on Jon, give him your best Robin scowl!"

I scowl back at him in disgust at how weak his attempt at scowling is.

Suddenly everything in front of me becomes blurry for a moment.

Clearly the same happens for Kent as he shakes his head.

"Having compared the two scowls closely," Wally says, clearly having jumped between staring at us both at super speed, "Jon's wasn't bad for a kid who hasn't had the years of experience of giving people evil looks that Damian's had."

"Well we've seen Jon's Robin scowl, now I think you have to do something like Superboy to counter that Damian, maybe you could strike a pose?" Barry suggests.

"Absolutely not."

"You can do it," Kent smirks, "unless you don't want to be Superboy, then you can just go back to being a pipsqueak. It's your choice."

"Fine! You want Superboy, I'll give you Superboy."

I stand dramatically with my arms akimbo, puff out my chest and stare off into the distance.

"Look at me, I'm Superboy. Until recently I couldn't even fly, I could only jump long distances and I want everyone to think I'm big and strong like my dad, but I'm just a cry baby. Oh, and did I mention I'm failing 5th grade math?" I do my best impression of Kent, which being an actually talented impressionist, is fairly accurate in my opinion.

"Hey! That sounds nothing like me!" he moans.

"That's fine, because now it's your turn. Strike a Robin pose!" Barry encourages.

"Great idea, but what I really need for that is a batarang," Kent says, feeling around the various pockets of my utility belt.

I can't stand him searching around helplessly for long and point to the pouch he's looking for.

"Perfect, thanks," Kent replies before jumping into his pose.

He pulls his hand holding the batarang back, and poses as if he's about to throw it at me like a baseball. Which is nothing like how I would throw a batarang. However, I notice he sticks his tongue out over his lip, which I must admit, I do involuntarily when I concentrate. And while it is annoying to discover that he's realized that habit of mine, I have to respect his accuracy.

"Look at me, I'm Robin. I throw around little gadgets and pretend that's way cooler than having super powers, even though I know it's not. Also, I only turned thirteen this year but make a real big deal out of being a teenager because I like to pretend I'm an adult."

FLASH.

Wait, what was- oh no...

"Did you just take a picture?" I gasp, horrified as I see Wally holding his phone up towards us.

"How could I not? Look at your poses! They're adorable!" he says as he turns his phone around to show me the image of Kent and I posing in our costumes.

"You have to delete that! NOW!" I insist.

"No can do, little man."

I try to lunge at him and grab his phone, but predictably he moves out of the way before I even notice.

"No point trying to steal this, I've already uploaded it to the Justice League's network. There's no deleting it now."

I can't believe this!

I knew Grayson might do that, but after I stopped him, I got complacent. I got caught up in these silly little games, and now there will forever be a picture of me dressed AND posing as Superboy...

"I don't know what you're worried about, Damian. I think we look pretty awesome!" Kent attempts to reassure me as Wally shows him the picture.

I walk up to Wally and shove my finger into his chest.

"I demand you run fast enough to go back in time and prevent yourself from making this mistake!"

Wally and Barry both chuckle in response.

"Nuh uh, kiddo, not happening," Wally replies.

"But we can make it up to ya," Barry says as he grabs our pumpkins and drops some candy into them.

Fine, if this is going to have to be my compensation for such humiliation, he better make it worthwhile.

"You'll have to do better than that," I glare at him.

"You drive a hard bargain, but I hear ya, it's Halloween, no time to be stingy with the candy," he replies as he decides to give us even more candy, getting much closer to filling our pumpkins now.

"That's better."

I grab my pumpkin and open the door. I'm done here.

Kent hurriedly grabs his and follows me.

"Thanks for everything, it was a lot of fun!" he calls back.

"You're welcome, kids!"

I resist the temptation to tell them that I'm not a kid.

"That was really fun. No hard feelings with the whole impression thing, right?" Kent asks.

"Of course not. It's my fault for getting caught up in such stupidity, if I hadn't allowed you to bait me into doing that silly pose then that picture wouldn't exist."

"You're still worried about that? Why? You look cool! Besides, you convinced Barry to give us way more candy than he was going to because of it! Look at all this?" he holds his pumpkin up to my face, "it's almost filled already and we've only had 2 stops, that's crazy, trust me! This is more candy than I get in a whole night sometimes!"

"I suppose this does look like quite a good haul."

And I can think of few things that would be more likely to make up for such a disaster than this amount of sugar.

"That's an understatement! And I know you had fun back there, whether you'd admit it or not."

"-tt-"

"Anyway, what direction next, Captain Superboy?"

"What did I say about calling..."

I trail off as I check the GPS device.

"What does it say?"

"It says to ask Barry for a lift."

"Do you mean-"

"Yes."

I turn around and ring the door bell once again, getting deja vu from earlier in the evening.

He opens the door.

"What, do you want even more candy? I gave you all we had!" he jokes.

I hold the device up to him.

"Huh? Ooooh. Okay then, are you ready?" he asks as he takes it from my hand.

"I suppose," I reply.

"This is going to be great!" Kent says.

"Hold on to your pumpkins, wouldn't want to lose your candy," Barry warns, "here we go!"

He grabs us before I can even blink and suddenly all I can see is a red blur as he transports us at full speed to our next location. In what feel likes maybe just 10 seconds, we arrive. It's as we come to a stop that I realize he was carrying us under his arms, which I would find embarrassing , first of all if I wasn't so dizzy, and second of all if I didn't already know that there was no chance of anyone seeing us like that.

I maintain my footing and shake my head as he places us on the ground.

"Takes some getting used to, huh?" he says, rubbing the back of his head, "sorry about that. But hey, you're here!"

"Wow, that was amazing!" Kent yells, "I've never moved that fast before."

"Yes, well, I believe that has made up for yours and Wally's earlier transgressions," I say, still attempting to get a hold on our new surroundings.

"I'm glad you've decided not to hold a vendetta against us for the rest of our lives. Anyway, have a good night, it was fun! See ya!"

"Goodbye!" Kent just about manages to say before he's gone.

With my vision finally back to normal, I take a proper look around and realize where we are.

"Ah, at least we should be free from childish shenanigans here," I say.

"Why? Whose place is this?"

"This, I believe you'll find is the rather luxurious apartment of Diana Prince, otherwise known as-"

"Wonder Woman," Kent whispers as he finishes my sentence.

"Exactly. Are you ready?" I smile.

He beams a smile back at me.

Wait, did I just give away that I'm starting to get into this whole thing? I need to look less excited.

"Always," he says.

We stand in position with our pumpkins and I ring the door bell.

"TRICK OR TREAT!" we say as the door opens to reveal Diana, dressed in her own uniform.

"Awww! You're as cute as I was told you'd be," she says.

"Who told you- ow!" I'm interrupted as Kent kicks my shin.

"Thanks!" he replies.

"Yeaaah, thanks," I sigh as I rub my other foot against my now possibly bruised shin.

And he calls me a jerk!

"Did you pick those costumes yourselves?" she asks.

Hang on-

"Nah, Nightwing suggested them!" Kent says.

I have a feeling that's not all he suggested. Has he told her to ask us that? And to call us cute? Typical Grayson, meddling with-

"Well, they're perfect. Are you enjoying swapping roles for once?"

"Yeah, I'm having a great time as Robin. What about you, Damian?" Kent asks.

"I'll never admit it out loud, but I might have been wrong about this whole thing because I'm having a surprising amount of fun so far. Although I am jealous of the fact that Jon looks much more heroic as Robin than I expected, meanwhile I'm stuck looking like a dork in a costume that he manages to look cool in on a daily basis. I just wish I could make as good a Superboy as Jon is a Robin..."

WAIT! WHAT IS HAPPENING? DID I JUST SAY THAT?

My eyes go wide and my jaw drops as I whip my head back and forth between Kent and Diana.

Kent pouts at me and places a hand on my shoulder.

"I didn't realize you felt like that," he says with an understanding tone.

"Yes, well, it's true-"

TRUE? OH NO, THAT'S IT!

I look down at my feet to see Diana's lasso of truth hanging loose from her waist and lying DIRECTLY UNDER MY FOOT! I must have stepped on it after Kent kicked me! This is all his fault!

I step back, making sure to create some distance between me and the lasso. But that does nothing to change the fact that I can feel my face going bright red exactly like earlier.

"I mean, it's not true! I was joking!" I insist.

"Joking?" Kent asks, scrunching up his face.

He looks down at the floor where I was standing a moment ago, and comes to the same realization as me.

He lifts his head back up with a smile.

"I'm pretty sure you were telling the truth," he says.

"Shut up!"

"I'm sorry, I'm confused, is this part of the trick or treating?" Diana asks, "should I be doing anything?"

"Uh, yes! Actually, this is totally normal!" I attempt to explain, "one of the trick or treaters makes a false confession, and the other one has to call them out on it! It's to do with, you know, ghosts being mischievous and such."

Diana looks unconvinced.

"Isn't that right, Kent?" I grind through gritted teeth.

He rolls his eyes playfully.

"Yeah, that's right. And your role is to try and ease him of his fake concerns," he tells her with a smirk, "like you would for uhh- a ghost, to help them move on."

He grabs my arm and drags me closer to Diana, I'm careful not to touch the lasso as he does.

"I see," she says, kneeling down to our height, "let me reassure you, young Superboy. You look very heroic, for heroism doesn't come from what you wear, but from what's in here," she presses her hand to my chest, "and it's obvious for everyone to see that there is not a cowardly or 'dorky' bone in your body. Be proud of who you are, embrace it and show it to the world. And most importantly, don't let something silly like a costume ruin an otherwise wonderful evening."

"Th- thanks, that's juuust what I needed to hear," I say nervously.

"Yup, thanks for helping with that, it's a little tradition of ours, right Superboy?" Kent says as he puts his arm around my shoulders.

"Riiight," I reply.

"Glad to have helped," she says sincerely with a smile, "I do love unique customs, especially ones I've never heard of before."

"Yup, it's pretty unique, shared just between really close friends," Kent says as he pulls my head closer to his.

"Now a custom I have heard about of course is that I'm meant to give you candy," Diana briefly steps away from the door as she goes to retrieve our treats.

I take the opportunity to turn my head away and slap my cheeks, hoping to return them to normality, but it doesn't seem to work.

"I wasn't sure how much candy I'm supposed to give you, so..."

She holds an entire tub of candy out in front of us.

Suddenly my face feels completely fine as my nervousness is replaced with excitement.

"Well actually, you don't really need to- oof!"

This time I kick Kent's shin.

"That's a perfect amount, thank you very much," I say as I grab the tub and place an equal amount into our pumpkins, which are starting to get much heavier than I expected them to at this point.

"Yeah, thanks!" Kent adds as I hand the tub back to her.

"Oh, one more thing!" she says before kneeling down again and wrapping her arms around us, "I wish you luck on your journey."

"Thanks for everything," Kent replies.

Unlike with Grayson's hug earlier, I don't feel the urge to try and escape Diana's grasp, instead, I start to melt into her arms. That's when I realize-

THAT GOD DAMN LASSO AGAIN!

As she begins to loosen her hold, I quickly leap backwards. Which thankfully Kent barely even registers, since when I think about it, that's pretty normal behaviour for me when it comes to hugs.

Diana and Kent wave goodbye to each other as she closes the door.

Kent turns to look at me, but I avoid his gaze, making sure to look at the GPS, pretending I haven't noticed that he wants to talk to me.

DING!

Perfect, a new direction, just in time- hmm, now that I think about it, these directions have always shown up exactly when needed. I mean obviously Father is the one sending them, but how could he time them this perfectly if the only information this thing is providing him with is our location? Unless...

I bring the device closer to my face and inspect it carefully.

"Uh, you okay?" Kent asks.

"Absolutely fine," I reply.

I can't see anything, typical. I could check thoroughly with tools from the utility belt around Kent's waist, but there's no need. I'm certain, this device is giving Father much more than our loca- wait, he didn't even specify what he meant by our location, did he? How underhanded of him. This thing must at least have a microphone, or a camera, oh who am I kidding? It has both! He's been spying on us this whole time.

I consider speaking into the device and telling him that I know his secret, if he hasn't already noticed that I've worked it out. But I decide to hold my cards close to my chest for now, just in case.

I knew he wouldn't let us do this unsupervised, but then again, does it even matter if I've been having fu-

"Have we got a direction yet? I heard it ding," Kent says.

"Yes, outside and up."

"Then let's go."

We walk outside and I climb into Kent's arms before we ascend into the air. Once we reach a decent height, we're told to turn 30 degrees to the left, then go straight ahead.

I look at my pumpkin and begin to inspect its contents. What kind of candy have we been given? How much variety? What treats do I dislike and will therefore offer to trade with Kent for something of more value? It's a rather blissful thought process overall, but I can only avoid conversation with Kent for so long.

"So when we do this again next year, are we going to have to do that whole embarrassing truth thing for Ms Diana? Since we did tell her it was a tradition of ours," Kent asks.

"It's not a truth, it's an embarrassing lie," I insist.

"Dude, it's okay, I saw where the lasso was. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

"What lasso? I didn't even notice one," I say nonchalantly.

Kent snickers in response at my obvious deflection.

"For what it's worth, I think-"

"I don't care what you think..." I say, cutting him off, "but, I suppose it would look strange if we didn't perform a similar routine for her. Next time though, you're taking the bullet and coming up with the embarrassing lie."

"That's fine, I'm kinda bulletproof," he says, "besides, it's probably fair if we take turns."

At that moment, I realize that I may have just accidentally made a commitment to do this whole thing again next year. I could tell him I have no intention of doing so. But I don't.

"I guess so. Anyway, how do you feel about Cadbury Cream Eggs?" I ask as I pull one out of my pumpkin.

"Wait, they managed to get those?" he replies excitedly.

"I'll take that to mean there's no way I'm going to be able to trade so I can have yours?" I chuckle.

"You keep your hands off my cream eggs!"

"What about Reese's Pieces?"

I'm so distracted as I list the sugary contents of our pumpkins for Kent and ask about his opinions of them, that I don't even notice until he stops that somehow we've managed to reach the coast without being given any further directions. Until-

DING!

"It says, down."

We land on the beach below.

DING!

Oh...

"What does it say now?"

"Down, down, down to the bottom of the sea. Clearly some sort of joke, but I get the gist. Atlantis is our next stop."

"Woooow," Kent says, "I've never actually been to Atlantis before! Wait! How are we going to keep our candy safe from the water?"

"Or more importantly, perhaps you could have asked how we're going to breathe," I roll my eyes.

"That too," he smiles, blushing slightly.

"Thankfully, I have the solution for both of those issues of course. Do you mind?" I ask, pointing towards the utility belt.

"Go ahead."

"These," I say, removing 2 masks, "will provide us with oxygen. While these," I pull out 2 plastic bags, "should be large enough for our pumpkins to fit inside and are capable of forming a watertight seal."

I give one of each to Kent.

"You always carry these around in here?" he asks, feeling around the utility belt.

"You never know when you might need to go underwater to transport something important."

"Wow, Batman really has something for everything, huh?" he says, placing his pumpkin into his bag.

"I believe you mean Robin has something for everything," I correct him.

"Well sure, you carry it, but it's Batman's stuff."

"No it's not!"

"Oh yeah? Then what did you make that's in here?"

"Well, I- uh- there's, uhm- in- shut up!"

Kent gives me a smug grin and I shake my head.

I secure my pumpkin in its bag and make sure that both our bags have been sealed correctly.

"When we're down there, we can't really talk through these masks," I explain, "so I'll just hold the GPS device up to your face when it gives us new directions."

"Wait, are you sure that thing's waterproof? What if it breaks?"

I look down at the device and think for a moment, before a sly grin spreads across my face. I know just how to check if this thing is waterproof.

"You're right, Kent," I say, making sure to speak clearly and directly at the device, "if this isn't waterproof and we take it with us, then we'll be stranded."

Are you listening Father? Do you need to send a warning for us not to take it and therefore give away your little deception?

I wait for a moment, but no warning arrives. And while that does confirm that our plan is fine, it means I haven't been able to outsmart Father, yet.

"We can take it with us," I say, "Father planned this route and knew we'd be travelling underwater. So I'm sure it's waterproof."

"That makes sense," Kent nods.

"So, are you as fast in water as you are in the air?" I ask, climbing into his arms once again.

"Almost," he smiles.

"Good."

I put on my mask, wait for him to do the same, then point into the ocean, signalling him to go.

We begin to make our way underwater, going deeper and deeper. We pass some wildlife, which I don't pay much attention to, until I notice some of the fish beginning to follow us. Not all of them can keep pace, but as I look behind us I can see a distinct trail of them. Soon, we're joined by larger aquatic life: dolphins, sharks, squid… within moments they've completely surrounded us. Then some of them start to swim ahead of us… then a few more, then a few more after that, until finally they form a tunnel.

DING!

I show the screen to Kent.

_Follow the fish._

We do as it says and allow them to lead the way, admiring what even I must admit is a beautiful sight. I knew the names of all the sea creatures from my studies, but I'd never considered how majestic they would look in real life, swimming all together like this, as our personal escorts no less.

After a while, the tunnel ahead of us suddenly disperses to reveal an equally amazing sight, but this time one of brilliant architecture, as we arrive at Atlantis. The people wave at us as we pass them and we wave back, still following our fish guides until we reach a building with a golden dome roof and 4 spires surrounding it. We place our feet on the ground at the entrance and stare ahead through the wide open doors to see two lines of atlanteans standing either side of us, while all the way at the end of the room, sitting on two giant thrones are the king and queen of Atlantis: Arthur Curry, also known as Aquaman, and his wife Mera.

We step forward slowly, Kent making sure to wave at all of the people in attendance. As we finally reach the thrones, we look at each other, unsure of how to proceed.

DING!

Of course.

I show Kent the screen and he shrugs with a smile.

We hold our waterproof bags containing our pumpkins out towards them, and I hold the screen for them to see.

It says, trick or treat.

"They're cuter than I expected," Mera says to Arthur before he stands up dramatically.

"Welcome everyone, to this event of cultural exchange!" he says, "standing before you are two representatives from the surface, who have come on behalf of the Justice League. Robin and Superboy."

Of course the one time someone says Robin first, I'm the one dressed as Superboy.

"I understand that you have come following the traditions of Halloween, and we're glad that you could share those with us. What we would like to share with you, is this!"

Another atlantean hands him a watertight bag, exactly like mine, filled with what looks like plants.

"This is a rare type of seaweed, as all atlanteans know, it is very hard to grow and only does so at this time of year. We eat it as part of our own annual celebration, and as a token of exchange, we would like to give some to you."

He holds the bag towards me and as I take it, the audience around us begin to clap.

"I know this might not be what you were expecting, but I believe you will be pleased to hear, it has a very sweet taste," Arthur says with a grin.

Kent and I are unsure on how to say thank you without speaking, so we attempt to bow, guessing that may be appropriate. We don't know if it was as Arthur continues-

"Now to complete our exchange, we must finish the ceremony of trick or treating. I was told this," he's handed another bag, this time containing what we came here for, candy, "is what you would be expecting."

We nod enthusiastically.

Arthur hands me the bag.

DING!

I should have known Father would do that.

I show Arthur the screen, which says thank you.

"You are very welcome. I am aware that your journey is not complete here, and that you must continue your travel. So we thank you for sharing this event with us and for accepting our gifts. You shall be escorted back to the surface," he says, pointing back towards the entrance, "safe travels!"

Kent waves at everyone again as we leave. This time they wave in return, and as we reach the entrance we see a group of sea creatures waiting there to guide us back. We follow them through the city, through the tunnel that they form and eventually, as we get close to the surface, they disperse and the GPS simply tells us to carry on straight and up towards the shore.

As we reach the beach that we began our underwater journey from, I take off my mask and place all of the bags on the floor as I adjust to the heavy weight of my absolutely soaked clothes.

"That was awesome!" Kent says.

"That really was special. Certainly not what I was expecting when I agreed to go trick or treating."

"If only going to Atlantis didn't get our costumes so wet. It's going to be freezing with the wind blowing against us as we fly, hopefully they dry out soo-"

"You do remember you have heat vision, right?" I remind him.

"Oh right!" he giggles as he strokes the back of his head sheepishly, "do you want me to dry you off first?"

"No, dry yourself first. I'll take the pumpkins and candy out of the bags."

As I take everything except for the seaweed out of the bags, I take a closer look at the candy that Aquaman gave us and chuckle.

"What?" Kent asks, walking over to me in his now completely dry costume.

"As soon as I saw these bags, I knew it was Father who gave them to Aquaman. But the other reason I know it was him, is because only Batman could trick Aquaman into giving us Swedish Fish," I hold them up.

Kent bursts into laughter, which must be rather contagious because I can't resist joining in.

After we calm down, he dries me with his heat vision and we follow our new instructions to fly into the air and begin to make our way back inland.

As we continue on our journey, I find myself gradually relaxing into Kent's arms, getting used to this unconventional mode of transport. Unconventional: a word which pretty much sums up the night so far. When I begrudgingly accepted that I'd have to go trick or treating, this was not at all what I'd envisioned. Our fathers really did go out of their way to give us a completely unique experience, one which even I have been learning to enjoy. And overall, it's mostly been only mildly embarrassing. Sure, there's a picture of us posing in our costumes that I'll never be able to remove from existence, but if we're going to do this every year, that was inevitably going to happen at some point. Not that I'm going to suggest that we make this an annual event of course, but maybe I'll go from majorly protesting against the idea to doing so just enough to make my feelings on childish nonsense like this clear, without having to call it off. The only incident that could have been avoided was with that damn lasso, but it's fine, Kent is the only one that saw that and he has a brain like a sieve. He'll forget all about it soon enou- wait, if that GPS does have a microphone, then it will have heard everything too... pff, you know what? I don't see how Grayson or Father could get any more insufferable anyway. And oddly, it led into what could become a tradition between us, just like Superman said. Plus I can't forget, the best part of the night hasn't even happened yet, the eating of the candy. Now _that_ I am looking forward to.

As we pass over another residential area, I realize that I'd like to take another look at the trick or treaters on the ground. But I won't admit that to Kent, instead I'll say-

"Could you fly a little lower, Kent? The air is feeling a bit thin up here."

"Sure," he says with a smile.

**Jon's POV**

I know you want to look at the trick or treaters again, Damian, you can just tell me that, you know. Whatever, as long as he's having fun, which I know he is. Not only because I can read the stupid code he speaks in, except sometimes when he uses those ridiculously long words, but he admitted it thanks to the lasso of truth! And that was before going to Atlantis! I knew he'd have a good time.

I've had a blast too! It's been different not sharing this day with Dad. I thought that would make it suck, but since every single thing we've done has been so completely different from what we used to do together, it's not affected my feelings at all. I absolutely loved spending that time with Dad, but these are both totally different things, I can't compare them. And that's good. Now I get to share that joy with someone who never would have known how fun trick or treating could be. Oh, and I can't forget how much candy we've got, I've never even got close to getting this much in one night before! There's no way I can eat it all. I'll have to share some with Dad later. I can't wait to tell him all about-

"Kent, do you see that?" Damian asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Huh? Do I see what?"

"There," he points, "that doesn't look like fun and games to me. Can you take a closer look?"

I stare at where he was pointing and instantly see what he means. There are kids in costumes running around, but they're not having fun. Some of them are dropping their candy, and not accidentally. It's weighing them down, because they're running away from something. I can see it in their faces, they're afraid.

"You're right, those kids are scared," I say.

"Of what? Bullies? Are they trying to steal their candy?"

I follow the trail of kids running and spot one of the people they seem to be running from. He doesn't seem to want their candy, he's just walking by as they drop it on the floor. And he seems really committed to his zombie costume, keeping his arms out in front of him and taking huge steps like a zombie. Why wouldn't he? He's got a great costume! The makeup on his face makes it look so realistic! Maybe they're just running because he looks so scar-

My eyes go wide as I gasp involuntarily

"What's going on? What is it?" Damian asks.

"He- I- His- That kid's arm just fell off!"

"What?"

"That kid everyone was running away from, he's dressed like a zombie, and his arm came off!"

I can feel my body start to shake, Damian must notice as he grabs my chin and forces me to look him in the eye.

"Calm down," he says, "it's probably just part of his costume. Stuff like that is how he's scaring people. Just take us to the ground so we can have a closer look at what's happening."

"R-r-right," I say, lowering us down.

"Kent," Damian says as we land.

"Yeah?"

"Remember, we can handle this."

I nod as we walk out from behind a fence and towards the street with the zombie kid. I look behind us out of nervousness and notice a girl in a skeleton costume hiding in the corner.

I tap Damian's shoulder.

"I think we're needed back here," I whisper, pointing towards her.

Damian peeks behind me.

"Good idea, we can ask her if she saw anything."

Sure, but most importantly, I was planning on trying to comfort her, so...

"It's probably best if I do the talking," I say.

"Fine, give it a try."

We walk over to the girl. She's pulled her knees to her chest and seems to be shaking uncontrollably, as we got closer, she buries her faces in her arms.

"Please don't hurt me," she cries.

"We don't do that," I say with a smile, "we're here to help. I'm Robin and this is Superboy, you might have heard of us?"

She slowly opens her eyes and takes a look at us.

"See? We're nothing to be afraid of."

"Are... are you guys the real Robin and Superboy?"

"Yup."

"Are you sure? Because I heard Robin's kind of a jerk, but you seem nice."

"What did you just say?" Damian replies aggressively, making her shut her eyes again.

"And you wonder why people say that!" I tell him.

"-tt- Sorry, kid."

I kneel down beside her and she opens her eyes again.

"Okay, so he's Robin, I'm Superboy, different costumes, long story. Anyway, the point is, we can protect you. But first, can you tell us what's happening? Did you see anything?"

"I- I wuh- was trick or treating with my friend, and he was dressed as a zo-zo-zombie and then there was this purple flash and..."

Tears begin to fall down her cheeks, smearing the skeleton makeup on her face.

I touch her arm reassuringly.

"It's okay, you're safe, remember? You can tell us."

"He- he be-became a real zombie! Like a really real one! And he started chasing me, and I- I didn't know what to do, so I just ran and- and I hid while he chased other people. I should've helped them! But I was so scared! I'm sorry!" she cries as she leaps into my chest, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.

I tap her on the back.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about. We're gonna fix this, okay?"

I look back at Damian who now has a very serious look on his face, well, even more serious than usual.

"Whatever's going on here, we'll get to the bottom of-"

FLASH!

Huh? What just-

"RAR! RAAAAR!"

"AAAAAHHHH!" I scream, turning back towards the girl that was hugging me… except…

"Jon! Look out!"

I jump back just in time to avoid being swiped by a boney hand.

"The girl…" I say, "She's… she's-"

A _real _skeleton!


	5. Chapter 5

**Jon's POV**

This has to be a trick! It can't be real!

I dodge another swipe from the skeleton in front of me, and feel the movement of the air around its fingers as they brush past my face.

Okay, so it feels real and it looks real, but that was a girl! A living, breathing, talking, terrified girl just a second ago! And now-

"RAAAAR!" it screams as it lunges towards me.

I step to the side, moving out of the way just in time.

I don't know what to do other than dodge. I could try to overpower it, but what if by hurting the skeleton, I hurt the girl? I can't take that risk.

Think, think, think! What would Dad do?

"Kent! No use bouncing around down here, take us back up!" Damian yells as he grabs my shoulder and pulls me away from another attack.

That's it!

"Hold on!" I say, grabbing Damian and launching us into the sky.

As we reach a safe height, I stop and take some deep breaths, trying to calm myself down.

"This trip is finally starting to get interesting," Damian says.

"Interesting? You're kidding, right? That innocent girl has just been turned into a skeleton and you're excited? What if we can't turn her back?"

"Don't be so simple for once, Kent! I'm just as concerned as you are, but to get to the bottom of this, we have to put our concern aside for now and investigate with clear heads," he says, poking mine, "we can't let ourselves get distracted with emotions."

I know he's right, how is worrying going to help? But I can't just shut off my emotions like he can. Still, I have to try. I need to control myself, stay calm and think.

"What happened down there?" I say.

"Now you're asking the right questions," he replies with a grin, "my best guess? Magic."

"MAGIC? We need to call our dads! There's no way we can-"

"Now you're the one who's kidding! We can handle this, we're Robin and Superboy! Or in this case, Superboy and Robin."

"Why does your name always have to come first?"

"Because I'm older," he says.

"Yeah, well I'm tall-"

FLASH

"Did you see that?" I ask.

"That purple lightning strike? Yeah, and I'd bet another kid has just been turned into some kind of monster, it wasn't far from here either. See? That's why we can't call our fathers, this is going to keep happening until we stop it, by the time they get here, the whole town will be affected. It's up to us. The sooner we solve this, the less chance of kids getting hurt."

"Fine, let's say you're right. How do we stop this? We don't have a clue about magic."

"_You_ don't have a clue about magic. I on the other hand, have experience with it."

"And?"

"And that experience tells me that this spell can't be coming from nowhere, there has to be a source, and nearby as well. We just need to find it. Which is where you come in handy."

"How?" I ask cautiously.

"Those flashes, they're big and obvious but when they hit, they're fast, I can't keep up with them. But you have super sight. The next time you see a flash, try and see where it's coming from. If my hunch is correct, it won't be from the sky."

"Got it."

We stay in the air, looking around vigilantly. I try my best to keep my eyes open, I don't want to miss anything while blinking. I can't let these kids down, I can't let Damian down, they're counting on me to-

FLASH

There!

"I saw it! You were right!" I say, flying us towards the source of the lightning without hesitation.

"-tt- Of course I was," he replies.

I stop.

"There," I point down towards a park, "that's where it came from."

"Hmmm, I wonder what's causing it..."

I think I have an idea. Damian can't see her from here, but I can, and as another bolt of lightning flashes past us, my suspicion is confirmed.

"Whatever's going on here, it's coming from a girl sitting in the park. I just saw the lightning shoot out from her direction. She's about our age and-"

"Your age or my age?" Damian interrupts.

"As if you look any older than me."

"-tt-"

"Anyway, she's dressed as a witch. So-"

"So that's my magic theory confirmed. I suggest we land nearby and sneak up on her."

"Or," I say, "maybe we could try talking to her first?"

That's what Dad would do.

"You really expect that to work?

"I don't know, but we have to give her a chance."

"Fine," he rolls his eyes, "she gets one chance, but if things get dangerous-"

"They won't."

I hope.

I don't think I need to tell Damian, he's probably already guessed by now, but magic terrifies me. It's the one thing that Dad's always struggled against, and he's way better at this than I am. If we can't fix this peacefully, I don't know what we're gonna do.

We land behind a nearby building and walk towards the park. Then we hide behind some bushes near the gate and peek over them towards the girl. She's sitting on the floor, her legs crossed as she reads a book.

"What's she reading?" Damian asks.

"I don't know, I can't see from this angle, but whatever it is, she's reading out loud and it sounds like gibberish."

"Then it must be a spell book."

"I- uh, guess so."

"Come on, let's go, quietly," he says, opening the gate.

We start slowly walking towards her. As we get closer, another flash of purple lightning shoots out from around her and into the sky.

I can feel some sweat beginning to drip from my forehead.

"Muh- maybe you had the right idea, maybe we shou-"

"Kent."

"What?"

"Give me your pumpkin," he says, holding his hand out.

"What for?"

"To keep our candy safe, we wouldn't want to lose it if this gets out of hand."

"Where are you going to put it?" I ask, giving it to him, "besides, this isn't going to get out of hand, right?"

He places both our pumpkins behind a bench, then turns back to me.

"Don't worry, there's no better team than Superboy and Robin, we got this. Just try to stop your hands from shaking," he smiles.

"My wha-?"

I hold my hands together to keep them still.

I hadn't realized they were-

"What are you doing?" I ask, noticing that Damian has turned back towards the bench now and is sitting the GPS device on top of it so that it's facing towards us.

"Our dads won't be able to see our location if you leave it there," I say.

"Oh, I have a feeling they'll see everything just fine from here," he replies, "now that's sorted, let's go have a chat with a witch."

We turn around and begin walking towards her again. I can feel that my hands are still shaking, so I hide them in my pockets.

As we get a little closer to the girl, she lifts her head suddenly.

"And I thought I was taking Halloween too seriously," Damian says, putting his arm out of in front of me, signalling for us to stop walking.

"Who are you?" she asks, her eyes shooting back and forth between us.

"Well, Superboy and Robin, obviously," Damian replies, gesturing towards his costume.

"No you're not! You're just pretending!" she says in disgust.

"If you only knew... got to hand it to you though, _you're_ certainly not pretending are you? What's with all the lightning going on around you?"

"It's nothing! Leave me alone!"

"Nothing?! Are you kidding-"

"I like your costume," I say, trying to stop the situation from escalating.

"It's not a costume!" she replies.

"Oh, sorry. Still, that's a really cool book you got there, I uhm- I like the creepy design," I say, getting a better look at it now that we're standing closer to her, "it goes well with the whole witch thing. Even if it isn't a costume."

I try my best to smile through the fear.

"...thanks," she replies hesitantly, "now go away!"

"Why?" I ask.

"Can't you see I'm busy? You're distracting me!"

Come to think of it, there hasn't been any lightning since we started talking to her. So I guess distracting her is a good start.

"From what?"

"From showing idiots like you how to do _real_ trick or treating!"

"Is that what you call transforming kids into monsters?" Damian asks.

"That's not what I'm doing!"

"Then what are you doing?"

"I'm helping them!"

"That's not what it looks like to me," he says.

"You just don't understand, no one understands! Trick or treating sucks! It's stupid! But I can fix it!" she insists.

Damian snickers.

"It sounds like we have a lot in common when it comes to Halloween. Even so, just because you don't like it, doesn't mean we can allow you to do whatever it is you're planning on doing. So we'll give you one chance, stop this now, because if you don't, we'll have to," he warns.

"I can't, it's going to work, you'll see! Everyone will- what are you doing?" she asks as Damian begins walking towards her.

I take a deep breath and follow his lead.

Please back down, witch girl.

"STOP!" she yells, but we continue to walk forward.

She holds her hands out.

"If you get any closer, I'll turn you both into frogs!"

FROGS?

I stop stiff, my body paralysed through fear. I don't wanna be a frog, what if we get stuck like that forever? And Damian left the GPS thing over there, so what if our dads never find-

I pull myself out of my thoughts as I see Damian still walking towards her.

"Da- I- uh- I mean, Superboy! What are you doing?!" I ask.

Is he crazy?

"She can't turn us into frogs," he says.

"But we literally saw her turn a girl into a skeleton! Why wouldn't she be able to turn us into frogs?"

"Because that's not how the spell works, is it?" he smirks.

Her eyes go wide and her outstretched arms begin to shake.

Wow, now she's scared, that means he's right, isn't he? She can't turn us into frogs! We don't need to be afraid!

I breathe a sigh of relief and join Damian in getting closer to her.

"You can only change people into the costumes that they're wearing, can't you?" he says, still smirking.

The girl growls back at him as she grabs her book.

"That's not all I can do!" she grinds through gritted teeth, before muttering what sounds like gibberish, and then-

"Wait!" Damian yells, running towards her as she begins to float upwards into the air.

He's too late, by the time he gets to where she was sitting, she's too high in the sky for him to catch her.

"Little girl, if you don't get back down here right now, you're going to regret it!" he yells as she continues flying upwards.

"Who are you calling little?" she replies, "you're the one trick or treating with your big brother! So lame!"

"He's not my- grrrrr!" he growls, "you're really making me mad now!"

She sticks her tongue out at us.

"So? What are you going to do about it? You're not superheroes, you're just a couple of kids playing dress up!"

"Robin," he says, turning to me, "go get her."

Okay, I can do this. Let's go!

I leap into the air, my arm stretched out in front of me as I fly directly towards the witch. She's fast, but nowhere near as fast as me, all I have to do is catch her and-

"AAAAHHH!" she screams as she spots me.

She quickly says something under her breath.

What is she-

FLASH

Wait, did that lightning bolt hit...

I can barely hold onto my thoughts as all of my energy leaves my body and I begin falling to the ground.

Huh? FALLING? Quick, fly up! FLY UP! Why can't I-

She- she used her spell on me, didn't she? She turned me into my costume. I'm not Superboy anymore, I'm Robin! Which means I can't fly, and I'm not as durable as usual. When I hit the ground...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" I scream involuntarily.

No, no, no, no!

Without my powers, I'm helpless. There's nothing I can do.

I shut my eyes tight and brace for impact.

It can't end like this, it can't-

THWUMP!

Well, I mean that kinda hurt, but-

I open my eyes.

"Damian..." I whisper, staring up at him.

After a moment, I realize I'm lying in his arms.

"It's okay, Jon, I've got you," he says, not looking down at me, but up at the witch with a face of furious determination.

"You saved me."

"Of course I did. Let's regroup," he says, turning around and running away.

"That's right, get out of here!" I can hear the witch yell from the sky, but not as clearly as I could before. I'd almost forgotten what normal human hearing was like.

Damian carries me to behind the bench where we left our pumpkins.

"Can you stand?"

"Uh-" I shake my head, "yeah, actually, I can," I say, coming back to my senses.

"How do you feel?" he asks as I stand up.

"Fine. Strange. I can feel that my powers are gone. But I also feel like I could-" I interrupt myself as I successfully do a back flip, then spring back into my previous position with a forward roll, "huh. I guess since she made me Robin, I can do all your flips."

"You do realize there's more to being Robin than doing flips, right?" he replies, unimpressed.

"-tt- Obviously, I'm not a mor- wait! Did I just-"

We both share the same expression of shocked realization.

"My physical abilities weren't all you got-" he says.

"I have the mental ones too, even your mannerisms," I add, finishing his sentence.

"Well then, that witch has made a serious mistake."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I ask.

"Of course, two Robins are better than one," he smirks.

"No, there's no better team than Superboy and Robin, remember? Or in this case-"

"Robin and Superboy," we say in unison.

"Now we're on the same page," he says.

"Only thing is, I don't know how we're going to do it."

"Simple, she's easily startled. That's why she used her spell on you, not because she knew that you'd lose your powers, but because she panicked."

"So we fling you towards her and coerce her into using her spell on you, thus making you Superboy and giving you my powers," I say.

"Exactly. See? Two Robins _are_ better than one."

"That's quite a height we have to get you to though, do you have anything in this utility belt to help?" I ask.

"I have just the thing we need," he shoves his hand into the belt and removes two metal devices, "gliding attachments for my shoes. They don't have enough initial propulsion to get me far off the ground, but if we provide that, they should give me what I need to approach her."

"Then I only have one question, are you ready, Robin?"

"Whenever you are, Robin," he says.

He attaches the gliding mechanisms to his shoes. Then we walk back into a more open space and I grab his arm. He runs in circles around me to build some momentum, then I grab one of his legs and begin to spin in a circle on my heels until... I let go.

**Damian's POV**

As Kent flings me into the air with the pinpoint accuracy I would expect from someone with my physical abilities, I activate the gliding attachments on my shoes and stretch my arm out in front of myself, just like Kent would. I'm going to teach her a lesson, no one scares my friend like she did and gets away with it.

But flying towards her isn't enough, I need to startle her.

"HEY! LITTLE GIRL!" I yell, "HOW'S ABOUT A KNUCKLE SANDWICH!"

That gets her attention.

"You too?!" she gasps.

Come on, come on, do the spell, otherwise I'm in big trouble.

I see her muttering something and wait for the-

FLASH

"WHOA!" I yell, barrelling towards her at an even faster speed now.

"How?! But I-"

Actually, this makes sense, because Jon- I mean, Kent got tired when it hit him because he lost his powers, but I- what was I saying? Wait, is she casting another-

"OOF!" I smack directly into some kind of magical barrier that's she's created around herself.

"There! Now you can't distract me," she says with a smile before going back to reading the spell from her book.

So my momentum just now wasn't enough to break this barrier, but just to be sure...

I pull my fist back and slam it forward into the barrier with all of my vastly increased strength, but it does nothing. It doesn't move the barrier, but it doesn't even hurt, which is nice. So, now what do we do?

I look back at the ground and see Jon standing there, watching me.

"I can't punch through the-" I begin to explain to him, before he cuts me off.

"Is there anything in the utility belt that could make the barrier more brittle?" he yells back at me.

Brittle? What does that mean again? Wait, that means like, make it easier to break, right? Or something like that. Yeah, yeah I remember, there is something in the belt, but what is it? Where is it? Stupid Superboy brain! Come on, think like Robin again for a moment. Think! I close my eyes and cover my face with my hands as I try and see the belt in my mind and check-

"OH! OH! OH! I GOT IT!" I yell excitedly.

"What is it?"

"It's a pink thing! It looks like bubble gum! In the 3rd pouch from the left!"

"This?" he asks, holding it up. Thankfully I can see what's in his hand with my super vision.

"Yeah! Pass it up!"

I see his tongue curl over his lip as he concentrates, just like I would usually do, before he launches the pink thing towards me, throwing it like a batarang. I catch it in my hand with ease - I love super speed. Anyway, I think this is how it works.

I throw the bubble gum looking object at the girl and it explodes into a cloud of dust. The dust sticks to the barrier, covering it entirely. Now I can't see the girl, and she can't see me. But I'm not sure, do I punch it yet? Is it ready?

I look back at Jon.

"I know what you're thinking", he says, "but use your freeze breath first before you punch it! It'll make it more bri-"

"Got it!" I reply before taking a deep breath, which feels deeper than any breath I've ever taken before and-

WOOOOOSHHH!

The barrier is covered in ice.

And finally, it's time to punch.

I crack my knuckles, before winding my fist back aaaand-

SMASH!

The barrier falls apart completely as lots of tiny pieces of ice fall to the ground.

"How did you-" the witch tries to say before I grab her by the collar of her costume, or whatever she wants to call it.

I hold her up with one hand, and with my other hand, I grab her book.

"No! Please don't take that, if you do, I'll-" I interrupt her begging as I yank the book away from her and tell Jon to catch, throwing it down to him. He catches it perfectly, just as I would expect from a Robin.

"I'll fall if you- AAAHH!" the girl says as she suddenly starts to dangle from my grip, no longer hovering from her own ability.

"So without that book, you don't have any magic, huh?" I ask.

"No, not most of it, so please, please don't let me go."

"I wouldn't do that," I smile earnestly, "I'm Superboy and- wow, I just realized, we didn't ask for your name?"

"Uh, Mariam," she replies nervously.

"Hi Mariam. Here's the deal. I'll take us both back to the ground where we'll be nice and safe, and you'll promise to tell us everything. That sound good?"

"Sure, anything, just let me down."

I gently lower us to the ground, then let go of her collar, trusting her not to run away. Which is unlike me now that I think about it.

Jon looks at us cautiously.

"Jon, this is Mariam. Mariam, this is Jon. She's agreed to explain herself, isn't that right?"

"Yeah," she sighs, "I only wanted to make trick or treating better! Honest!"

"And how was turning kids into monsters supposed to do that?" Jon asks.

"I wasn't turning them into monsters! I was helping them to be who they wanted to be, it's not my fault if they chose to dress up like a zombie or a werewolf."

"Why did you want to 'help' them in the first place?"

"Because, well..." she looks down at her feet, "no one wanted to go trick or treating with me. They never do, everyone at school just thinks I'm weird. But they were always talking about how excited they were to be a princess or a vampire, whatever. And I thought, maybe, if I let them be a real vampire, and not a pretend one, they might see that it would be fun to go trick or treating with me, you know? But when I suggested it, they all thought I was crazy, they thought I couldn't do it and that it would be a stupid idea. So I had to show them instead."

I place a hand on her shoulder.

"I get it," I say.

She looks up at me in surprise.

"You do?"

"Of course," I smile, "I used to be like you. I didn't understand trick or treating, why would someone wear a costume and pretend to be something else? What's fun about that? But then, a friend made me try it," I give Jon a glance, "and you know what? I realized, the fun is in the pretending, because you get to take a break from being you. You can be who you are every day, you always get to be Mariam, and you get so used to it that it's hard to be someone else. The fun part is_ trying _to be something different, to think like the person you're supposed to be. You know that you're not really different, but you'll never understand how to take that break from being yourself, if someone just flips a switch and does it for you."

"I never thought about it like that before..."

"So you've explained why you used your magic," Jon says, "but how? Where did you get this book from? Are you a real witch?"

"I mean, I guess I've always been able to do some magic. Just small things mostly. I bought this outfit and notebook because I was hoping I'd get to try trick or treating this year, but then when people said my idea was dumb, I got really mad and just started writing stuff down. And all of a sudden everything just came to me, I don't know where from, but when I tried saying what I'd written down, it worked. All of the spells worked."

"Hmmmm, I think it's best if we let someone more experienced take this from here," Jon says.

I nod in reply.

"But first, we're gonna need to ask you something," I say.

"What's that?"

"Do you want to go trick or treating with us?"

"Wha- what?"

"Yeah, what?" Jon adds.

"Well, we're almost done, but we still have at least one more stop to do. And I think, based on my experience, the best way to understand trick or treating, is to try it with the right people."

"You really want me to come with you?" she replies, her face lighting up with excitement.

"Duh! Isn't that right, Robin?"

Jon sighs.

"Okay, but you have to do one thing for us first," he says.

"Which is?"

"Reverse the spell. We can't have kids running around trying to bite each other or getting into any other kind of trouble. Can you do that?"

"Uh huh, I can. But I need the book."

He hands it to her, and she flips through the pages. She stops on one and begins to read it out loud.

Suddenly-

FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH

All of the lightning returns from the sky and shoots directly at her, but she's unaffected.

Meanwhile though, I feel incredibly tired all of a sudden.

"Wow!" Kent yells, "that was exhilar- exhil- nope, I lost it," he shrugs.

"You got your powers back?" I ask, shaking my head.

"Yup! Can you do your flips again?"

"I think so," I say as I begin to feel normal, my energy returning as my body adjusts to not having superpowers again, "but I don't feel the need to demonstrate."

She closes her book.

"All done."

"So are the rest of the kids like us? Are they unharmed?" I ask.

"Should be."

"Good. In which case, let's go trick or treating."

We walk back to the bench and collect our pumpkins. I grab the GPS device and smile as it changes our instructions. I knew Father was watching, I placed this in just the right spot for him to get a good view of everything through where I suspect the camera might be, only as a precaution of course. But in the end, he didn't intervene. He trusted us to solve the situation, and we did. Plus, even with all the meddling and planning, I did have a good time. Perhaps everything Father, Grayson and Clark did really was with good intentions. To make sure that I enjoyed this trip enough to change my mind about trick or treating. Of course, that doesn't mean I have to tell them that I understand tha-

"What does the thing say?" Kent asks, as I realize I've been standing here thinking to myself for longer than intended.

Clearly I'm not back to my usual self just yet.

"Up, as expected," I say, before turning to Mariam, "you have your own spell to fly, are you happy to follow us in the air with that? We'll go a little slower so you can keep up."

"Sure," she says as she looks down at her book.

I climb into Kent's arms in prepara-

"Wait? You can't fly?" she asks, clearly trying to hold back laughter.

I grind my teeth.

"Nope," Kent replies for me, "but he can do flips."

She giggles.

"Just take us away, Superdweeb," I say.

We follow our instructions and soon enough, I realize where we're headed. Almost certainly a change of intended direction due to our extra guest. As we land outside what I suspect is our last stop, The Hall of Justice, I hand Kent his pumpkin and turn to Mariam.

"You can just hold your hands out," I say.

She nods excitedly.

I knock on the door.

"TRICK OR TREAT!" we all yell as the door opens to reveal Superman.

"It's good to see you," he says.

"Whoa..." Mariam whispers in awe, "is that-"

"Hi, I don't believe we've met," Clark says, kneeling down in front of her and holding his hand out, "I'm Superman, and you are?"

"Mariam," she replies, blushing as she shakes his hand.

"Well Mariam, I believe we have some talking to do about your little powers later. But for now," he stands back up, "who wants candy?"

"Me!" I say.

"I do, please!" Jon adds.

"Me too, me too!" Mariam yells.

He drops some candy into our pumpkins and places some in Mariam's hands. Which she quickly shoves it into the pockets of her costume.

"So did you boys have a good time?" Clark asks.

"It was amazing!" Kent replies.

"It was... somewhat enjoyable," I smirk.

Kent rolls his eyes playfully.

"He had a great time, he said so himself earlier," Kent says.

"I did not!" I reply.

"Yes you did, you said you had a surprising amount of fun!"

Clark interrupts our little fight as he ruffles our hair.

"The important question is, did you have enough fun that you'd want to do it again next year?"

Kent withholds his answer, instead opting to stare at me and wait for mine.

"I wouldn't immediately decline that suggestion," I say carefully.

A beaming smile spreads across Kent's face.

"That wasn't a no," he replies.

"We'll talk about it closer to the time," Clark says, "but for now, I have a few questions for you, Mariam."

He directs her towards the other side of the hall, so that Kent and I can discuss things more freely.

"Wait a minute," Kent says, "how did Dad know about Mariam's powers?"

I take the GPS out of my pocket.

"They've been spying on us. There's a camera and microphone in this device, I'm sure of that."

"But Batman said he was only tracking our location."

"First rule of being Robin, _never_ trust Batman. Rookie mistake. You'll get there though," I joke, patting his shoulder.

"I think I learned a lot about being Robin today, especially with that spell. For a moment there, I felt like I could have hacked into a mainframe or something."

"Or at least learned your times tables, then you might not fail math," I snicker.

Kent gasps.

"Should I ask Mariam to use that spell before tests at school? Would that be cheating?"

"I don't think there are any specific rules about it," I laugh more openly now.

"Pretty sure Dad wouldn't be happy about it though. How was it being Superboy?"

It felt, freeing. Sometimes I feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders, but as Superboy, that feeling was gone. Or maybe it wasn't, maybe I was just strong enough to carry it.

"It was okay, I guess," I reply nonchalantly.

"So did you stop worrying about looking like a dork?"

"I told you, I was joking when I..."

I can see by his face he's never going to buy that, so I give up.

"Yeah, I think I did."

"Well for what it's worth," he smiles, wrapping his arm around my shoulder, "I think you made a very heroic Superboy."

"And I think you made a halfway decent Robin."

He chuckles.

"Do you think we should go as the same thing next year?" he asks.

"That wouldn't be the worst idea... if we go trick or treating that is."

"Yeah,_ if _we go... which we definitely will."

"Shut up, Kent."


End file.
